


everything is different the second time around

by The_Lionheart



Category: Dark Tower - Stephen King
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst with a Happy Ending, Autistic gunslingers, Blood, Canon-Typical Sexual Content, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical sexual abuse, Childhood Trauma, Dissociation, Gore, Gun Violence, Horror, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jericho Hill battlefield scenes, M/M, Marten/Walter/Randall is his own warning, Multi, Multiverse, Pre-Fall of Gilead (The Dark Tower Series), Psychological Trauma, Reincarnation, Spoilers for the entire Dark Tower Series, Tattoos, Technically canon-compliant AU/Multiverse, Time Loop, Torture, Trans Male Character, canon-typical child abuse, minorest canon character Thomas Whitman (is not an OC)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-13 13:03:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 104,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18469522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Lionheart/pseuds/The_Lionheart
Summary: "Death, but not for you, gunslinger. Never for you. You darkle. You tinct. May I be brutally frank? You go on."Ka is a wheel, and there's more than one gunslinger caught in its spokes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Regina Spektor's _You've Got Time._  
>  Additional lyrics from _Poor Wandering One,_ from Gilbert and Sullivan's _Pirates of Penzance._  
>  Chapter 1 warnings: unrequited love, child murder, assassination, battlefield death, eye injuries, mass shooting  
> Chapter 2 warnings: hypnosis, psychological torture, sexual torture, explicit rape, implied/referenced incest, self harm  
> Chapter 3 warnings/tags: implied rape, implied murder, implied incest, Stephen King's IT, mind-control, possession, mind-sharing, mindscape visiting  
> Chapter 4 warnings/tags: rape, finger/hand injury and dismemberment, strangulation, beheading, canon-typical reports of war crimes, todash travel, todash space, Eddie Dean/Toren, Jake Chambers/Toren, traumatic khef-sharing  
> Chapter 5 warnings/tags: implied/referenced child abuse, implied/referenced incest, child illness/terminal illness, child death, traumatic reincarnation, Almost Everyone Lives AU

The beginnings are always the same.

There is a difficult pregnancy and a dangerous birth; his mother is a lady of the seaside Baronies, and her hips (as his father will tell him later- he knows less than nothing about this sort of thing) are the only delicate thing about her. She is strong, though, and she lives to see him and name him- Thomas, after her father. She does not believe in gunslingers, despite having married one. She doesn’t want him to be a gunslinger when he is grown- she teaches him the stories and ways of her father and brothers, teaches him to love a sea he’ll never get to see with his own eyes. She sings songs to him- some of the old world-that-was, some of the old world-that-is.

Her name is Verise Whitman, but when he is five- too young to remember her, his father will snarl later, and he doesn’t dare disagree- she leaves them both, becomes again Verise Malatesta, becomes again Verise O’ The Rising Waves. Thomas misses her deeply, and misses the sound of her voice, and the stories of pirates and ocean-taming scoundrels. He misses the barrier she made between him and his father, and the way Colton Whitman never had time for him when she was there.

He does not know the name for many of these feelings and wishes. He knows only that there is a change in his life; it is colder, and harder. Many things that she had never remarked upon become sins in the eyes of Col Whitman, and Thomas finds it difficult to understand why. There are things that his father wants him to say or do, and those things, also, are difficult to understand.

It is almost a relief to be taken, a year later and with no warning, to the barracks where there are other boys waiting. The relief is short-lived; their teachers, Thomas learns slowly, hate many of the same things that his father does. He finds his first day and night exhausting; his second day is no better, right until he plucks up the courage to speak to a couple of boys, off on their own.

“May I sit?” he asks timidly, and the boy- eyes wide and glassy, hair a soft, cloud-like corona a couple of shades lighter than the boy’s brown skin, spots of berry-red on the corner of his jaw and spread across the back of his right hand- nods, patting the smooth stone he sits on. The other boy he is with is sitting in the grass, his light-colored eyes barely visible under the tangle of his honey-colored hair. He regards Thomas as he pushes himself up onto the stone bench.

“I’m Alain,” the blonde boy offers. Thomas nods uncertainly- he knows this, but he’s not sure how. Possibly he’s heard his father say. “You might have done. Our fathers patrol together sometimes.”

Thomas blinks, then nods. “I’m Thomas.”

“I know. This is my friend, Jamie,” Alain says, pointing. Thomas shoots Jamie a small smile, and Jamie gives him a smile in return, and something curious and soft flutters in Thomas’s chest. He will not remember later that this is the moment that he falls in love with Jamie DeCurry: he will only know that he can’t remember a time when Jamie’s smile didn’t carry the sun and the stars. Jamie is lovely like the sea, like the river, like the streams his mother took him to, teaching him that all the waters end in the sea.

Today they are the same height. Within a few years there will be a solid nine inches between them, with Alain’s height squarely in the middle, but today they are six. It is lovely to be six together and to be the same size, Thomas decides, and a thought strikes him- _I want to remember this. I want to remember it for next time._

“What next time?” Alain asks innocently, and Thomas blinks at him. Alain is lovely, too- lovely like the sky, when small clouds and lines of birds are flowing seaward. Thomas doesn’t know how he got so lucky, and he starts to wonder what kind of birds they are, and what kind of things they eat, before he remembers that Alain has asked him a question.

“I don’t know,” he says truthfully. He opens his mouth, and Alain nods.

“Yes, I can hear you. I can hear you very loudly, actually. You make everything louder.” Alain’s smile is beaming. “And thank you, Tommy, that’s _so_ nice.”

Thomas grins shakily at him, and when he glances hopefully to his side Jamie is smiling, too, and something in Thomas’s heart breaks free and sings at the sight of his smile again.

Lovely like the sea and all the ships, Thomas thinks fervently. Lovely like cool, clear water sparkling in your hand.

“You’re funny, Tommy,” Alain says, and Thomas sighs happily.

In ten years, the field they are sitting on, and the castle, and the town- all of it will be destroyed, haunted and hanged with death and deadly mosses and poison gasses. In less than twenty, the three of them will be dead.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Alain Johns is dead, and Roland and Cuthbert- Alain’s best friends, and half of their ka-tet- are stony with grief.

Jamie’s eyes search his face, his thumb tracing a spot on his sleeve- it’s covered now, but for more than a decade Thomas has had an anchor there, the clumsy first tattoo of a twelve-year-old with an obsession. “Alright, Tommy?”

Thomas’s tongue ties, and he shakes his head, gazing helplessly at his hands, at Jamie’s hands holding them.

It’s dark enough that Thomas can’t see the tattoos that Jamie’s thumbs are brushing, but he knows them by heart- four bullets on each hand so he’d never run out, a luck-charm on each knuckle, briar thorns on Thomas’s left wrist to ward off demons, knotted rope on his right to help him steady his course.

Thomas’s chest and throat ache. It doesn’t feel the way it did when his mother left, or when he learned that his father had died, or even after Gilead fell. Losing Alain feels like teetering on the edge of a steep and treacherous cliff, like soon no one will be left-

- _no one but Roland, forever and ever, something in the back of his heart whispers_ -

-and like there will be no escape. Thomas swallows tightly.

“I don’t. I don’t want,” he says, something very akin to panic trying to crawl out his throat. “Don’t want to- to see you die, Jamie.”

Jamie looks quickly at him- Thomas lets out a soft, involuntary sound, and Jamie pulls him close, resting his head on Thomas’s shoulder. Thomas puts his arms around Jamie’s shoulders, and a part of him thinks: _This is the last chance you have. This is the last time you’ll see him alive. You have to tell him now that you love him, that you always have._

“Jamie, dear Jamie,” Thomas says, and he finds that panic is crawling faster now, leaving great, lashing gashes inside his throat and chest. He finds that he cannot speak. He finds that he is afraid, even now, on the brink of what he knows, deep down, is death for them both.

A sob catches in Jamie’s throat, and Thomas presses him close, presses his mouth against the top of Jamie’s head.

Alain was Jamie’s best friend, even if Jamie wasn’t his. And now Alain is gone, and Thomas is dreadfully certain that they- Cuthbert and Jamie and Thomas himself- are soon to follow.

 _But not Roland_ , his mind decides. _Never Roland._

He surprises himself with a soft, “Mayhap this is the last time. Mayhap there is no next time.”

Jamie’s hands fist into the back of his shirt. There is a question there, one that Thomas can see the shape of even without Alain here to translate.

“I don’t know,” he says, hands shaking as he squeezes Jamie tighter. “I don’t know. I feel- you know that feeling, of having already done something, but only you’ve forgotten? I feel as though I’ve been here before, with you, and our ka-tet. I feel as though I’ve already seen the end of today.”

Jamie tilts his head back to look up at him, and Thomas smiles weakly. “I don’t even know what I’m saying, do I?”

Jamie’s hand- lovely and well-made, just like the rest of him, the red mark a delight, very nearly like always holding rich red flowers- reaches up, brushing tears from Thomas’s face. He supposes he has been crying. How like his Jamie to see, how like his Jamie to care for his tears.

“Tommy,” Jamie says softly, and Thomas’s mind fairly wails, _tell him, you must tell him, when ever will you again see him living, Thomas? Tell him!_

His heart quivers like a struck bird-

-like poor David, he remembers, the memory a decade away-

-and he bites back the words, too ashamed to have left them for so long, too sure that Jamie will pull back in confused horror to hear them.

They sleep like condemned men for the rest of the thin traces of that night, and the battle of Jericho Hill begins in earnest before dawn’s light climbs fully from the horizon.

Certain dread curdles in Thomas’s gut. A glint of light in a distant tree- no, not light, a reflection- he knows what it is-

-and so does Jamie, Thomas realizes, agony lancing through him. He does what Cort would have beaten him speechless for, turning his gaze away from the enemies rushing their position, and he takes a step toward Jamie and Roland.

Jamie knocks Roland to the ground, and Thomas watches his beautiful hair and face disappear in an explosion of gristle and blood, his body jerking and falling. Roland’s arm whips up and he fires, and Thomas knows, over the sound of his own shrieking, that Jamie’s killer is dead. It is no comfort at all.  
  
_Ax handle_ , Thomas thinks, shooting at a screaming wretch- his bullet blows the man’s hand to smithereens and the wood of the handle bursts into bloody splinters, and nothing hits Cuthbert’s shoulders as the man’s arms swing downward.

Cuthbert blows the man’s head away, kicking his body aside, but before he can turn to look at Thomas, Thomas runs just slightly forward, trying to catch up to Roland- their lovely and fey dinh, who is cutting a path of death through this horde already- up on the side of the hill.

He needs, he thinks wildly, to make it to the top- he thinks he must, he thinks that will be different enough-

-different enough from what?

Thomas shoots seven times, and seven men fall, brains splattered on their fellows. Without thinking- without seeing- he shoots his guns twice more, and a man holding a pike in both hands falls, two red holes in his chest. Roland glances at him as the pike tumbles to the grass, but does not look back at Thomas, too focused on the enemy surrounding him.

A bullet in each gun, and then he’ll have to reload. Does he have time to? Thomas kills a man with his left hand, and the right- his weaker hand, admittedly- goes wild, shattering a wooden shield and breaking the arm beneath it, but naught else.

 _Cort would kill me_ , he thinks, reloading as quickly as his fumbling fingers can. He drops a bullet, a moan escaping his lips as he continues reloading without it. _Cort would kill me twice. I’ve never been handy at reloading, never quick, and now it will kill me, surely as any bullet might._

Thomas shoots again, thunder in his hands beckoning the vile pack of marauders toward their deaths.

A bullet nicks Thomas’s side- enough to startle and burn someone who wasn’t a gunslinger, but even the worst and least of the gunslingers is still, at the heart of it, _a gunslinger_ \- and Thomas almost casually removes the top of his head from the nose up.

I can’t die of a bullet, Thomas thinks, mouth parting in an awful mimic of a smile. Not with the tattoo Jamie picked for me.  
  
His arm swings again and he fires, and the man who was going to shoot Cuthbert- aye, and hit him square in a kidney- falls dead.

“Stop babysitting me, Tommy!” Bert calls back at him, over the roar of their killers.

“No, shan’t,” Thomas replies, and Bert fires at him- not toward Thomas, but toward the face of the man with the sword behind him. Thomas glances over his shoulder. “Thankee, Bertie!”

Cuthbert opens his mouth to say more- perhaps he does say more, perhaps Thomas only can’t hear it- and a man chucks a club at him, aiming low. Thomas shoots him dead, but the club still hits his knee with a crack that goes up through Thomas’s teeth, and he thinks he cries out as he collapses to the field.

He has time to wonder- _is it broken, can I get up?_ \- and the pack is upon him. His guns take down three of them- two of them moaning and clutching onto their crotches, where great fountains of blood are spurting- and a fourth man- broad and hairy, shirtless over his leather kilt, a great bow and a quiver still full of arrows on his back, face smeared in blue paint and spattered with red blood- stops, raising a bastard gun at him.

Thomas fires, and the empty chamber clicks. The man grins, lowering his pig iron, and for a moment Thomas thinks wildly that this is his father, alive again, come to collect his penance for all of the sins Thomas has indulged in during his long and wandering exile.

A pair of rough hands grabs each of Thomas’s arms; another hand rips his hair from the tight topknot he’d had it in, tangling in it and yanking his head back to expose his throat.

The kilted man comes close, running a gritty, bloody palm down Thomas’s jaw and across his neck, before flicking his hand, almost gently, to open Thomas’s shirt, exposing the glorious, radiant rose tattooed over Thomas’s heart, one he drew himself when he was eighteen. Something in Thomas quails, sure again that this is his father-

-and the kilted man smiles, and he _is_ familiar, somehow, but Thomas can’t be sure why.

 _He’s going to ask me to pledge to the Good Man_ , Thomas realizes dully, as the rough hand smooths over his chest, doubtless feeling the hammering of his heart. _He’s not the Good Man, but he works his strings, like- like-_

“You’re so very scared, o lost and lonely one,” the kilted man says, and his voice is soft, nothing like what Thomas thought it would be- familiar, though, and _why_? There is a familiar lilt in his words, as if he’s going to start singing a song Thomas knows well. “Surely you don’t want to die today, like all of the boys you came here with? Just beg, little gun, in the Good Man’s name, and he will spare you.”

“Fuck you,” Thomas says, tears already streaming down his face. It is a relief when the man hits him- he can feel his jaw dislocate and crack with the force of the blow, but at least the man’s not touching his chest anymore.

“Is that any way to speak to your savior?” the man asks, and blood dribbles from Thomas’s lips, and he wonders if this man will give this chance to his friends, or if they’d accept it even if he did. Thomas finds his tongue is loosed; a day late, perhaps, but better late than not at all.

“Jay,” he whispers, and the blue-painted man is almost quizzical, and Thomas finds that he can shout, at least for now. “ _Jay! Jamie oh my dear oh love oh Jay oh Jamie-_ ”

The man hits him in the face. He feels his eyesocket crack and bulge, feels blood run out like thick, hot tears, feels the eye plop onto his cheek- feels the gaping discomfort as he tries to shut his eyes and his lashes brush the back of his eyeball. The man hits him again, and a burbling hysterical laugh rises up in his chest as the eye is flattened into jelly against his swelling face- _look Bertie, we match, don’t you see?_ he wants to crow, and doesn’t understand why the urge strikes him- and he is, at least, spared the confusion of trying to see in two wildly disparate directions.

The man hits him again. His teeth shatter like glass, spraying back into his mouth and throat. The man hits him again, and he chokes on his own teeth. The man hits him again, and his head rocks violently to one side, tearing a great fistful of his hair from his head, and the man hits him again, and his collarbone snaps, and the man hits him again, and Thomas doesn’t know if he’s speaking or moaning or making any sound at all, just that the litany in his head is not the catechism, is not about Gilead or ka or their quest.

 _Oh my love my Jay my Jamie oh dearest oh Jamie_ , and overhead he hears- like a voice muffled by many rooms’ worth of distance- the kilted man say, “Draw it out. Make it slow. Just make sure he can be identified later.”

And another voice, closer by, “That’s what the tattoos are for, ain’t they?”

It is drawn out. It is slow.

 _Oh Jay, let this be the last time_ , he thinks, and a kick to his stomach doubles him over, and a kick to his head snaps it back of a sudden-

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The beginnings are always the same.

Verise Whitman commands the midwives to hand her the child she’s brought forth, and she folds a squalling, despondent infant boy to her chest.

He doesn’t have words in his head yet for the things he is thinking and feeling. He hurts everywhere, and is shocked with the sudden cold, and there are noises and lights and a hundred clamoring things rushing to the front of his mind, and they all hurt him, and they’re all important to remember. Verise soothes his crying until he is left only with heartbroken little hiccuping sobs, remembering her voice, remembering her smell and her softness.

“Oh, my poor baby,” she says softly. “Oh my little Thomas, what tears are these, my dear?”

His thoughts fall through his mind like water through hands. This is Mother, the Whole of Everything, and he wants to be with her, and her arms are warm. He forgets a little as he dozes, and more and more, with every sleep. She sings to the boy in her arms, _poor wandering one_ , and his unease at the song grows less, is replaced with comfort.

Their time together is short.

“Mama,” he says to her once, when he is newly five years old. He hands her a small red flower- it pleases him, and he’d clutched it to his chest with a sweaty palm all the way home- and she smiles, brightening his world. She lets him climb into her lap, and she tells him a lovely story as she sits and sews. He is very sleepy indeed, his thumb in his mouth, when he asks her, “Tell me the story of the boy who is the sea?”

“The what?” she laughs gently, kissing the side of his forehead.

“The boy is the sea,” he says dreamily, “and all the ships, and he’s the rivers, and clear water in my hand.”

“He sounds very lovely indeed,” Verise says gravely, stroking his hair back from his face. “Will you tell me this story, my love?”

He cannot. He buries his face against her chest, too bashful to complete his thoughts, much less voice them.

“Shall I tell you another story, then?” she asks kindly. “How about the tale of Captain Farris and the Tiger, Tommy?”

He likes the tale of Captain Farris and the Tiger. Captain Farris is brave, and he is clever, and he is kind-  instead of the Tiger eating Captain Farris’s crew, he befriends Sai Tiger, and the Tiger becomes a loving member of the pirate crew. Her lilting voice carries him to a blissful sleepiness, and it strikes him, in a voice both like and unlike his own: it means that any problem, any hurdle, any enemy can become a friend, can be turned to good, can turn away from evil. He just needs to be brave, and clever, and kind.

 _I can do it_ , he thinks sleepily to himself, in that voice that is both his and not his. _I can fix it._

Verise is gone not long after. Colton Whitman sits down on his bed, a weight in the air of the room.

“It’s just us now, Tommy,” his father says, a hand on his back. “Just the two men of the house alone, right?”

“It is so, Daddy,” he says, leaping suddenly to his feet.

“Oh, where are you going, o springheeled thing?” his father asks him, a smile in his voice.

_you’re so very scared, o lost and lonely one_

“Am going to The Place,” Thomas says, mustering as much seriousness as he can in his little five-year-old chest.

“Aye, and what place is that, you rogue?” Col asks playfully.

Thomas blinks at him, lost for words. The Place is where he must go. It has not occurred to him that others might need to know of it.

“The Place,” he repeats, a little unsure. It’s not a place for grown fathers, he thinks. It is a place for small boys, and no one else. “It’s- it’s a place for me only.”

“Oh, is that so,” Col purrs, standing up suddenly, and something in the motion makes Thomas flinch back, like he expects-

_a kick to his chest, breaking the ribs and punching a bone through a lung_

-his Daddy to raise a hand to him, though he’s sure he hasn’t done anything wrong to warrant it. Not today, at any rate. He must admit, he is sometimes naughty, and sometimes inexplicably so.

His father stares down at him, eyes unreadable.

“Such doglike cringing will have to be trained out of you,” he says finally. “I’ll not tolerate my son the only coward in Cort’s teachings, understood?”

“Yes, Daddy,” Thomas says, though he really doesn’t understand at all.

“Go on then. Back in time for dinner or not, I’ll not nursemaid you,” Col says briskly, and Thomas clambers to his feet with words of thanks tangling themselves in his mouth.

He has never been to The Place before. He thinks he doesn’t go to The Place til he’s seven, practically a grown man, but he wants to go there _now_ , and so he follows his feet more than his eyes, letting them walk him through the eaves of the castle and ducking past the kitchens. Someone calls after him- it is Hax, a nice enough man, a man who his mother is very fond of- but he cannot stop to talk now, his head down as he watches the ground before his feet.

He watches his feet, and so does not see the man, or the man’s legs, until he collides bodily with them. He staggers back and the man reaches down to steady him.

“Hold fast, boy,” the man says, and he does a double take. “Oh, you must be the Whitman boy, Thomas.” At Thomas’s flabbergasted look he reaches out and tweaks Thomas’s nose, giving it a hard little waggle. “I’d recognize this anywhere, lad.”

“Yes, Sai DeCurry,” Thomas says, before he realizes that yes, this is the doctor. Sai DeCurry looks surprised that he remembers him. Thomas stares patiently at him, but the doctor seems to be waiting for him to speak first. Finally, the doctor clears his throat.

“Where might you be headed, hm?”

Thomas opens his mouth to answer, and something crowds into his head, all at once- not his voice but another’s, _You mustn’t tell about the Place, Tommy, it’s our place_. He thinks this, like the way to the Place, is from a later-time, a hasn’t-happened memory.

“I’m going to see the sea,” he squeaks honestly, and Sai DeCurry laughs at that- not at the words themselves but at Thomas, as though he’s being very silly.

“Well, you’re your mother’s son too, I’d say!” he says heartily. “Begone and do no mischief, boy, lest mischief be done to you.”

“Yes, Sai, thank you,” Thomas says, before turning back to the ground and his feet. He wanders a little- something wants him to wander, something wants him to not be seen by Sai DeCurry again- and then he goes again, following the memory in his feet.

He knows The Place at once. It is cool and dark, and far back and away from the busy parts of the castle. He looks around- it is too damp in summer for storage, he thinks idly to himself, before wondering what would be stored in a place like this. He doesn’t care much for the answer, though. He is impatient to see the sea.

There is a small place, a shelf long since tilted into the wall, making almost a tunnel. There are old things here- rolled up carpet, long faded, and straw-filled pillows, and a baby blanket. And there is the sea.

The sea looks up at Thomas with wide, glassy eyes, and his hair is a soft, cloud-like corona a couple of shades lighter than his brown skin, and dabs of red- like his mother’s flower, like always holding rich red flowers- on his right hand, on his jaw. A great surge of feeling- happiness, and wholeness, and love- rises in Thomas’s chest, and he points next to the boy, grinning.

“May I sit?” he asks, and at first he thinks the sea won’t answer, but then he slowly, gingerly reaches out a hand, patting the battered carpet roll beside him. Thomas sits down, gazing raptly at the loveliest person he’s ever seen for many minutes, until the sea turns, looks at him, and gives him a small smile that makes Thomas’s heart sing.

“I’m Thomas,” he says proudly. “Are you Jamie?”

The name springs to his mouth like a natural thing, like it belongs there most of all, and the boy smiles again, nods.

“Thank you,” Thomas says fervently, and after a few more moments of puzzled silence the boy puts his hand in Thomas’s, and gives it a gentle squeeze. Thomas knows he should be sad that Mother’s gone, but he’s never felt more glad in all of his long five years of life. They sit very quietly, and it seems like they could sit there forever, happily silent.

In ten years the castle will be razed nearly to the ground, half its walls tumbled and burnt- Thomas will go with Roland once, after the fall, and Roland won’t let him creep in here after they see something almost-human dragging itself out. In nineteen years they will all be dead; all but Roland, never Roland.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“How was it?” Thomas asks nervously. He is eleven, but very nearly twelve, and only Alain is older than he is. Roland and Bert exchange lofty glances- Roland uncharacteristically soft, Cuthbert uncharacteristically serious.

 _Cuthbert will say it was good_ , Thomas thinks suddenly, and Alain shoots him a curious look.

“It was good,” Bert says solemnly. The bruises on his face are still healing, from Cort’s anger at him during his lesson with David-

- _oh, David, poor David!_ -

-but the swelling is gone, and he just looks like he’s older with the dark purple and red of the bruises, Thomas thinks. He’s not sure why he thinks older.

_look bertie, we match, don’t you see?_

“He died still trying to speak his piece,” Roland says quietly.

Thomas rubs his chest uneasily, thinking unbidden of a glorious golden rose, made of cut glass. “He thought he was right.”

“And he wasn’t,” Roland snaps. “He was a traitor and a murderer, Tommy.”

Thomas rubs his chest again, frowning. “Could be he was lied to, made to think it was the right thing.”

“It matters not what could be, only what was,” Roland tells him, and Thomas thinks- as he does, more and more- aye, but not next time, _next time_ could be different.

“There’s no need to argue over it,” Cuthbert says mildly. “You want to come with me, Ro? I should like to get some water to drink.”

“Yes, I will,” Roland says, but- and this too, is unusual for him- he turns and gives Thomas a soft look. His eyes, Thomas thinks dizzyingly, can be beautiful indeed when he’s trying to be kind. “Thomas, you might not be suited to being a gunslinger.”

“ _Roland_ ,” Alain says protestingly, and Bert’s eyebrows raise a little.

The truth is, Thomas thinks he altogether might not be, but it’s what he must do his best to try to learn, at least. He shrugs.

“We’ll all learn soon enough,” he says. “Thank you, Roland.” His friends take their leave, and he turns to Alain. “Want to see Jamie.”

“We will,” Alain says, then, hesitant, “Tommy, could I speak with you a moment?”

Alain always speaks like that- very lovely, like a grown man- and Thomas is momentarily enraptured with the sound of his voice, the light through his honey-colored hair, the curve of his face, like a line of clouds pushed away from the setting sun-

“Thank you, Tommy,” Alain says gently. “Would you speak with me, Tommy?”

“Oh, aye, I would,” Thomas says happily, letting Alain lead him to a seat. “You’re so lovely, Alain. Do you remember when I said so? Lovely like the sky, when the birds are chasing the seaward wind, lovely like the clouds above them.”

“No, Tommy, I don’t,” Alain tells him, and Thomas hums a little.

“We were six, then,” he explains, and Alain gives him a soft, puzzled smile.

“Yes, but I can’t remember all of six, can you?” he asks, and Thomas blinks at him. “Thomas, take a care, though. Remember earlier today? You knew what Roland and Cuthbert were going to say.”

“So I did,” Thomas agrees. “As sometimes happens.”

“Do you suppose you might have the Touch, Thomas?” Alain asks, a little eager, and Thomas’s dreamy smile slips from his face. “Only- only it’s sometimes _very_ often that you seem to know- and when I’m with you, Tommy, I can hear _ever_ so much more, I can feel and see things from farther away, and I think- isn’t that something like the Touch? Don’t _you_ see it too, Tommy?”

“I don’t…” Thomas trails off, thinking. “I don’t think it is the Touch, Alain. I don’t know what people think or why they do things. It’s just… sometimes I remember, is all. I remember what they said before.”

“That could still be the Touch, in its way,” Alain says stubbornly, and Thomas rubs his hands over his face and back through his tangled mane of brown hair.

“I don’t think it is,” he says again. “But I don’t want to disappoint you, Alain.”

“We can ask Vannay to test you,” Alain suggests. “He might say it is, and then-”

 _And then Alain won’t be alone, the only one_ , Thomas thinks, and Alain smiles ruefully at him.

“As you so put it, Tommy.”

Thomas doesn’t think it will work out the way Alain wants it to work out, but he wants to at least try, for his sake. “Mayn’t we see Jamie now, then?”

“Well, yes,” Alain says, and Thomas nods happily. They move towards the open hallway as one- Thomas somewhat less steadily than Alain, who sometimes has to reach out and take Thomas’s arm or the back of his shirt to stop him from walking into other people or bouncing into the stone walls. He never complains, the way Thomas’s father does, that he’s got to learn to move ten feet without tripping or falling if he’s to be a gunslinger and not be sent into exile for his clumsiness. Thomas glances over at his friend, and Alain returns a grin that looks to be as full of love as Thomas feels now.

Jamie is in their barracks, in his bed- he is ill, Thomas thinks uneasily, and then, as sure as his first thought is not: he must not see Dr. DeCurry, not now, not ever.

“Hile, Jamie,” Thomas says, and after a moment Jamie moves his arm in invitation. Thomas flops onto Jamie’s bed- already taller than Jamie and Alain both, his bones and joints a constant low whine of pain- and curls his arms around Jamie’s legs, his head on his lap. Jamie sighs at him, his small and perfect hands moving to patiently untangle the mess of Thomas’s brown hair.

It is very good; the silence feels full, likely because Alain is reaching through the Touch to tell Jamie of everything that was said and done today. There is softness; for them, for this moment, the world is made of light and love.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Alain Johns is dead, and Thomas can’t stop crying, his heart rending itself to shreds in his chest. He can’t stop sobbing, his Jamie’s arms around his shoulders.

“For your father’s sake, shut him up,” Bert says wetly, his voice all a-tremble, and Thomas weeps harder, because as much as he loves Alain, he knows, Bert loves him even more, Bert loves him most, and he can’t bear the knowledge.

“Tommy,” Jamie whispers to him, his small and perfect hands moving through Thomas’s hair. “Tommy, dear. No more, Tommy, no more.”

Thomas moans softly, pressing his face into the palm of Jamie’s right hand, but he stops weeping, at least, his chest shuddering in silence. Jamie’s hand moves slowly, stroking the hair away from Thomas’s face. This time his fingers find and trace the sigil on the side of his neck- crossed guns, the tattoo Jamie’d chosen for him long and long ago, protecting him against death by gunfire.

 _It must work, though_ , Thomas thinks wildly, and he is left only with heartbroken hiccuping little sobs. _Tell him you love him, Thomas, tell him now, for this is it, surely you know that this is the last chance-_

“Thomas,” Roland says softly, and he is crouching low and near now, resting his hand on Thomas’s head- and oh, what killer’s hands they are. “Thomas, would you look at me, please?”

It’s the _please_ that gets him to open his eyes. Roland’s eyes can still be altogether too beautiful when he is trying to be kind, and the fact that he is trying to be kind to Thomas makes this worse, surely.

“He won’t have died in vain,” Roland promises gently, as if that’s what Thomas wants, as if that’s what Alain would have wanted. “We’ll honor him tomorrow, won’t we? We’ll honor all those we’ve lost, and fight, and stand. It will be glorious, Thomas.”

“And then what, Roland?” Thomas asks him, his whole body alight with sickness and love for his dinh, a man both lovely and fey.

“We either live, and pursue the Tower as Alain would have done… or we die, Thomas, and we meet him again in the clearing at the end of the path,” Roland says softly, and bends to press a kiss against Thomas’s forehead.

_Ah, no, not for me, Roland, and not for you, never for you._

Thomas waits until he returns to Bert’s side, and his hands- aching all the time now, the fingers too easily unmoored from their joints- clutch at Jamie’s side.

“I don’t want to see you die,” he whispers, and Jamie gives him a small, sad smile.

“Nor I you, Tommy,” he says, “but we don’t have very good odds, do we, dear?”

“We never seem to,” Thomas mumbles, and they sit, unable to sleep through the last ragged traces of that final night.

The sun is not quite against the horizon- it is dawn, but in name only- and Thomas has a thought, and he grabs onto Jamie’s shoulders, bodily swapping places with him.

“Thomas, what-” Jamie says, startled, and Thomas shakes his head.

“I shall explain this later, so I will,” he mutters, and Jamie shoots him one last, lovely smile.

A certain dread curdles in Thomas’s stomach, and he turns, eyes narrowed, trying to pick out the tree where the sniper lies in wait- he knows it’s there, it’s a twenty-four year old memory but surely- there is a flash of light, and he is the one closest to Roland, now. He grabs Roland and throws him to the ground, and a bullet whizzes overhead.

“Thomas-?” Roland asks, and then his eyes widen and he realizes what he’s been saved from- he aims his guns and fires the shot, but oh, the sniper shoots just a moment too soon, and Jamie’s head explodes in a cloud of gristle and blood, his body jerking and falling. Roland’s bullet finds its home in the sniper, and that is no comfort.

“ _No! No I did it right I did it right you can’t, you can’t!_ ” Thomas shrieks, his throat tearing itself bloody.

 _Ax handle_. Thomas’s arm jerks so suddenly that he feels something in his elbow wear thin, on the verge of snapping. Nothing hits Cuthbert, and Bert shoots the handless man dead.

“Thomas?” Bert calls, dark eyes intent on Thomas’s face, but Thomas can’t, he can’t, he can’t- if he stops he’ll freeze, if he stops he won’t make it to the top with Roland, if he stops it will happen again, and again, and again he fires seven times, and seven men fall dead, their brains hot and chunky across the faces of their fellows. Are they friends, brothers, lovers? Thomas finds that he can’t allow himself to think of them, not until it’s over, not until they stop.

 _Pike_. Thomas shoots the man dead, and Roland glances over at him, and Thomas can’t, he just can’t. Ten shots taken, two left. A bullet in each gun, and then he’ll have to reload. Does he have time to?

Thomas kills a man with his left hand, and the right- his weaker hand, admittedly- goes wild, shattering a wooden shield and breaking the arm beneath it, but naught else.

“Gods above, Cort’s rollin’ in his grave,” Thomas cries out, tears choking him. He reloads shakily- he’s tried and tried, and mercy must exist somewhere, somehow. He doesn’t drop any bullets this time- _this time? how many times is it?_ \- and he raises his guns, thunder in his hands beckoning the vile pack of marauders to their deaths.

A bullet nicks his side- just a graze, and he’s so angry that he does something unthinkable, and shoots the man in the gut, leaving him to be trampled, leaving him to bleed out into the muddy grass.

Thomas barely looks as his arm moves like a force of nature, shooting the man who very nearly shoots Cuthbert in the kidney, the man’s head simply gone.

Cuthbert opens his mouth, and Thomas can’t bear to hear it again.

“I’ll never stop babysitting you, Bertie, so don’t ask!” he calls out, and Bert startles at him, before shooting the swordsman behind his shoulder. Thomas doesn’t even turn to look as the body falls. “Thankee, dear!”

 _Club. Club!_ Thomas is too late- the man dies before he breaks Thomas’s knee, but no bullet could stop a heavy object in flight, he suspects. He falls- shoots three of them dead, blood rushing fountain-like from their crotches, and something in Thomas fiercely wishes he could stick around to see their ends, but no matter. The fourth man- broad and hairy, shirtless over his leather kilt, a great bow and a quiver still full of arrows on his back, face smeared in blue paint and spattered with red blood- approaches, the pig iron in his hand raised, and Thomas did not drop the bullet this time, and he fires, teeth bared in a snarl.

The kilted man’s hand flies up, and he steps aside.

“Missed, my lad,” he says cheerfully, his voice soft, so much softer than Thomas expected, and increasingly familiar.

“ _Didn’t_ ,” Thomas growls, and a pair of hands fastens onto each shoulder, yanking his arms from their sockets. Another hand rips his hair out of its topknot, and a surge of anger leaps through him- Jamie takes care of his hair for him, when he wants to look nice, and Jamie’s hands touched his hair last, and he wants none of them to touch something that Jamie’s touched. He struggles, and the hands tangle into his hair anyway, yanking his head back, exposing his throat.

The kilted man comes close, and Thomas is struck again with the dreadful certainty that his father has come back to life, just to do this. His body shakes, and the kilted man’s open hand- grit, blood- caresses over his jaw, down his throat, opening his shirt to reveal the glorious rose.

“You’re right,” he says softly, and in his other hand he shows Thomas his last bullet. “You _didn’t_ miss.”

“How many?” Thomas asks, hating the sound of the sob in his words. “How many? How many times? How- how-”

“There’s just the two of your friends left,” the kilted man says, his mouth sticky and hot against Thomas’s ear. “And soon one. And soon none. You needn’t die here, or now. This could be different for you. You just have to beg, little gun-”

“Fuck you, fuck John Fucking Farson, and fuck you, _but again and worse_ ,” Thomas snaps at him.

The kilted man hits him in the jaw, dislocating and breaking it, and a sobbing laugh bubbles up in Thomas’s chest.

“You’re a glutton for punishment, lad,” the kilted man says coolly.

“Y’have no idea,” Thomas gurgles, closing his eyes. He can see Jamie’s face, Jamie’s hair, the movement of his fingers, the line of his neck. “Oh Jay, oh Jamie, oh love-”

“Moaning another man’s name like a wanton whore,” the kilted man laughs, and his hands grip Thomas’s thighs, just above his broken knee and savage enough to make him wail. “If only we had time, o lost and lonely soul, if only there weren’t stray bullets around here.”

 _Jamie, Jamie, Jay, Jamie,_ Thomas thinks to himself, a litany that should have been sung. One hip is wrested from its bearing, as if the kilted man wants to tear his legs off- could be he wants to, could be it’s possible- and a knee drives into his sternum, cracking it, sending all the breath out of him at once. Teeth sink into his ear, tearing it from the side of his head, his body convulsing with the urge to scream and throw up and fighting fruitlessly for air, all at once. There is hot blood all down his front somehow, iron-rich and stinking, and he opens his eyes just in time to be hit in the face again, sending his body rocking, breaking his nose.

 _Oh Jay oh Jamie Jamie Jamie_ , in a voice that he knows is his own, always has been, _jamiejamiejayjamiejamiejamie_ -

Above his head, as a fly buzzes near and lands on his lolling tongue, he hears the voice of the kilted man: “Draw it out. Make it slow. Just make sure he can be identified later.”

And another voice, closer by, “That’s what the tattoos are for, ain’t they?”

It is drawn out. It is slow.

 _He has a gun, Jamie,_ Thomas thinks bleakly. _Jamie, why won’t he just shoot me? He has a gun, he has a gun in his hands, Jamie, oh, Jamie, why doesn’t he just_ -

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The beginnings are always the same.

Colton Whitman isn’t home, and Thomas, newly five, climbs into Verise’s lap.

“Mama,” he says slowly- he’s sleepy, because he’s warm and comfortable, because she’s warm and soft, because the smell of her soothes him, makes all the bad dreams and confusing thoughts lay quiet a while.

“Yes, Tommy, dear,” she says, and he clutches onto her.

“Does Daddy love us?” he asks, and she is quiet for a moment, her hands stilling briefly before she goes back to stroking his glossy hair.

“Did your father do something to make you think-” she starts, then stops, her voice trailing off. “Has your father hurt you at all, Tommy?”

“I-” Thomas trails off, unable to put it into the words he has, too young yet to have learned the words he needs. “Sometimes I have dreams.”

 _Sometimes I have dreams that Daddy looks different, but it’s him, that he’s a ghost and that he hurts me until I’m dead_ , he can’t say, because a part of him knows that’s not exactly right, either. _Sometimes I have dreams that you’re not here and Daddy doesn’t hurt me, but I’m scared of him anyway, I’m scared of how he looks at me_.

“Well, Tommy,” Verise says gently. “Would it be better if you slept with me tonight, dear?”

Thomas clutches onto her dress, eyes wide and round. “Daddy says it’s not how gunslingers sleep, though.”

“He’s certainly not here to argue with me, is he?” Verise asks, and he is so crushingly relieved that he plops his head onto her chest with a sigh. “I’ll take that as a yes, Tommy.”

“Mama?” he asks, and she rubs a circle into his back. “I don’t want you to go away. Please don’t.”

“Why- of course I won’t, Thomas,” she says seriously, pressing a kiss to his head. “I’d never leave you, my dearest.”

Within three weeks’ time she is gone, and Col Whitman is standing at the foot of his bed, framed in moonlight.

“Remember,” he says seriously, nothing of his face visible in the shadow. Thomas doesn’t dare move out from under his blanket. “You’re not to climb from bed or make a peep in the night, Thomas. A man faces the dark alone, and a gunslinger is a man when he’s still very small… right, Thomas?”

“Yes, Daddy,” he whispers back, trying to stay awake until his father leaves, terrified that he’ll drift off while his father is standing and watching him like that, but his eyes slowly shut against his will, and he is cold under the blankets, and his body is heavy. He sleeps, and when he wakes his father is back- or had never left, Thomas can’t say. The dawn is still new, barely crawled up from the horizon- though how Thomas knows that, he can’t say. The castle walls are too high here for him to see the horizon from his window.

“It’s the color of the sky,” he murmurs sleepily, and his father startles slightly at the sound of it, but says nothing.

Thomas climbs out of bed and clumsily makes it, then goes to the privy, then trails back into his room to get dressed, where his father still stands, like a statue made flesh.

“Good morning, Daddy,” Thomas says, and Col startles again, looking at him with new eyes, it seems.

“You look to have plans for the day, son,” he says, and Thomas nods, pulling on his shirt and messily tying the neck closed with a soft yarn.

“Am going to the Place, Dad,” he says, then, very seriously, “we already talked about this.”

“What pla-” Col starts, then stops, giving him a puzzled look. “What are you talking about, boy?”

Thomas looks at him, then, because he can’t think of anything to add, turns back to pulling on his short little boots, tucking the legs of his pants into them.

A rough hand grabs-

- _at his hair, pulling his head back to expose his throat_ -

-him on his arm, fingers digging into his armpit, and for the first and also the hundredth time his shoulder simply fails to function, and his arm pulls out of the socket. Thomas is too small to stop the shriek of pain from leaving him, and maybe Col Whitman is too angry to stop his hand from moving again, slapping him in the face hard enough to knock him back.

“You answer me when I ask you a question, Thomas,” his father pants down at him, as if he’s run a great distance instead of just across the length of a child’s nursery.

“Y’s Daddy,” Thomas wheezes, clutching at his right arm, hanging down at his side. The air is thick with the sound of his own breath, high in his ears, and for a moment he thinks a startling, traitorous thought, _can’t be a gunslinger without my arm I won’t have to be a gunslinger oh please don’t make me_ -

“Stay here,” Col says sternly. “I don’t know why you pulled away like that, boy, you know your body is weakly stitched.”

Thomas nods, struggling to gulp down air through his tears. He does know.

Thomas’s crying subsides, a little, as his father leaves him and the growing morning light brightens in the room, and he even manages to gather up some of his things- his vest, and a couple of very interesting river rocks-

- _like holding cold water in my hand_ -

-and a small brass button, because it’s pretty, and because he wants to give it to the sea. Names are all a-jumble now, and he’s sure he’s forgetting many things, but he knows in his soul that he loves the sea, and that he loves the boy, and that he doesn’t want to wait.

“Here’s the little scoundrel,” his father says at his doorway. “Wrenched his arm from its socket, poor devil. I’ve warned him against rough-housing, but- ah, well, you have a son yourself, I suppose.”

“That I do, Sai Whitman,” a man’s voice says, and ice runs all down through Thomas’s body. He whips his head around, and the man is smiling ruefully down at him. “Ah, you must be Thomas. I’d recognize that squeaker anywhere,” he says, and tweaks Thomas’s nose.

“No,” Thomas says firmly, even though he’s about ready to cry again. “No. Daddy, no, I don’t need a doctor, I don’t need Sai DeCurry, Daddy, no-”

“How do-? Mayhap his mother showed people to him?” Col Whitman shrugs, exchanging a mystified look with the doctor. “Stop with that silliness, son, you’ve gone and pulled your arm out, he has to put it back in.”

“ _No, no, no_ ,” Thomas moans, backing against the edge of his bed, and Dr. DeCurry sighs, kneeling close enough to pin him in place.

“It’s a common fear for youngsters, Colton, even among the current crop of gunslingers,” Dr. DeCurry says cheerfully. “I’m sure his little friends have all spoken ill of the horrors of having their skinned knees cleaned and bandaged.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” his father agrees uncertainly, and Thomas feels sure he’ll scream, he wants away from the press of this man, he wants away from this room, he wants to go to The Place and lay in safety a while, he wants, he wants, he wants-

The back of his neck is cradled momentarily by Dr. DeCurry’s hand, pressing his face against the man’s chest, muffling him with his shirt and waistcoat, and the other hand goes to his arm, and with a sharp jerk that brings even more of Thomas into contact with his body he yanks Thomas’s arm, and it snaps into place with an wetly audible pop, and then Thomas _does_ scream, in pain and terror both.

Dr. DeCurry waits until he shrieks himself out, until he’s mostly just sobbing into his shirt, and when he finally lets go of him, Thomas sags back against his bed, tears streaming down his face again.

Even his father sounds stunned when he speaks. “I- had assumed there was- some kind of- ice, or a small potion for the pain, or-”

“Little boys are made of rubber, Colton,” Dr. DeCurry says softly. “And little gunslingers can’t learn to depend on painkillers.” Thomas looks blearily up at him, and sees a small, round circle of wetness on his shirt where his open mouth had been, and the sight of it makes him want to scream again, only he’s just too exhausted, now, to even think of it.

“He should rest it for a week or so,” Dr. DeCurry says, then, freshly cheerful, “it’s good fortune you’re left-handed, isn’t it, Thomas?”

Thomas doesn’t move until his father walks the doctor out, until he’s back, looking almost as lost as Thomas feels.

“Well, I-” he starts, and stops, looking utterly bewildered. “Well, son, don’t- don’t do it again.”

“Won’t,” Thomas pants, but he knows- it’s been many times it’s happened, it’s going to be many times it happens again. Thomas stands, makes his weaving way back across the room, shakily stuffs his pockets with his good hand.

“Thomas, don’t-” Col starts, then stops when Thomas turns his face toward him. “Don’t- don’t hurt your arm any worse today, else he- he’ll have to come back, you know.”

“Yes, Daddy,” Thomas breathes out, and Colton looks away, and that’s as good as a dismissal. Thomas almost follows his feet to the Place- almost betrays it, he thinks, though he’s not sure that’s the word he wants- and stops suddenly, breathing hard.

He doesn’t know where Sai DeCurry is. He doesn’t know if he’s watching, curious, to see where he goes. He can’t let him know about The Place, he can’t take The Place away from the sea, from the boy, from the boys who use it, even if it means he never gets to.

Thomas tilts his head very slowly, staring wildly around. He knows he’ll visit Alain’s home one day. He knows his feet know the way, the same as how they know the way to the Place. He knows he knows, he knows he knows, he knows he knows-

“What ails you, little man, that you stop and grimace so?” a man’s voice asks, and he knows before looking that it’s Hax. His mother is very fond of Hax, he remembers wetly, and he thinks he remembers that Hax wasn’t- isn’t- wasn’t bad, just confused, could be fixed, could be changed. If only he could remember what it was, or how to fix it.

“I’m too _little_ ,” he sobs, and Hax stops, staring at him, taken aback… then, his eyes narrowing as he takes in the sight of his face, the way his arm hangs at his side, the discoloration peeking out from the disheveled collar of his shirt.

“Alright, Little Squire, alright,” Hax says gently, crouching down in his kitchen as boys and girls- most of them only ten years older than Thomas, at the most- file past and around them. “What do you need, then?”

“I need- I need to find my friend,” he says desperately. “I must find my friend. He can help me.”

“That’s as solid a start as any,” Hax agrees. “Which friend is this, Little Squire?”

“Alain,” Thomas says, then, hiccuping, “Alain Johns. He’s my friend. My friend is Alain.”

“Sounds like your friend is young Alain Johns,” Hax says seriously, and Thomas nods miserably. “Shall I tell you how to find his quarters, Little Squire?”

“I’m Thomas,” Thomas explains anxiously, and Hax nods.

“Alright, Thomas. Can you go up a flight of stairs? If you take the stairs up to the next level, and follow the hallway all the way down, to the-”

“Blue door! Blue door, that’s the door, blue!” Thomas interrupts excitedly, and then freezes, uncertain. Hax digs into his pocket, and hands him a trio of hardened, candied fruit slices.

“Sounds like you’ve cracked the mystery of it, Thomas. One for you, one for Alain, one for Alain’s little friend, if you see him,” he says, and Thomas thanks him and runs for the stairs, bouncing up them two at a time-

- _poisoned meat, they said, in Taunton_ -

Thomas slows to a stop, looking at the candies in his hand.

Probably not bad. He wants to give Alain something nice, and the sea, but- but-

-Thomas swallows raggedly, and puts them very carefully behind a tapestry. There. Now no one will ever see them again.

Thomas jogs the rest of the way to the blue door where the Johnses live, and beats the wood with his now-empty hand until a big, big, redfaced, big man yanks it open.

“Who in the goddamned hell are you, you little puke?” the man snarls, and Thomas’s hope of finding Alain falters for a moment.

“Is- is this Sai Johns,” he says timidly, and the gunslinger snorts and nods. “Only- only Alain is my friend, and I need to tell him something?”

“Alain hasn’t got any sniveling pukes for friends,” Sai Johns says, and Thomas is momentarily baffled, because _clearly he does_. Thomas swallows- unsure if he can even do this at all- and calls out, crying in his mind for Alain, groping blindly for the Touch that he knows exists as a part of Alain’s mind.

 _Please Alain, please, we’re friends, we’re already friends, please come_ , he prays fervently, and there is an immediate clamor behind Sai Johns.

“Oh! Da, it’s my friend!” Alain chirrups, and suddenly he’s there, real and solid and whole and alive, and Thomas knows if they don’t get somewhere safe- maybe not the Place, but somewhere like- that he’ll break down again, that he’ll scream and cry again, and he isn’t completely sure _why_.

“I have to go help him, I promised,” Alain lies sweetly. “Love you, Da!”

They’re barely out of the main hallway before Thomas does burst into tears again, but quietly, and Alain’s soft, short arms are around him, patting soothingly at his back.

“We’re friends, we’re already friends,” Thomas tries to explain.

“Okay,” Alain agrees, taking care around his hurt shoulder. “We’re friends now, Thomas.”

“Alain,” Thomas says, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “You have to give these to the sea. I have to go when it’s safe. I remember it’s not safe for me to go yet. He watches me too much. Other times he’s found it. I have to wait.”

“Who?” Alain says, frowning as Thomas hands him the river-stones and the brass button. “The sea- you mean, Jamie?”

“Jamie,” Thomas sighs wistfully. “Jamie, yes.”

“I don’t know where Jamie-” Alain starts, and Thomas gives him a watery-eyed look of reproach. “Thomas? Why is everything so loud and clear when I’m with you?”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” Thomas sniffles, and Alain sighs, stroking his face a little in babyish comfort.

“Alright, Tommy. And-” He frowns, not angry-frown but a look of intense concentration. “Why do you say we’re _already_ friends?”

“I don’t know how to say,” Thomas confesses, rubbing his eyes. “I need you, Alain. Your- the Touch. It knows better than I do. But I think you don’t know how yet, I think I remember. You should ask Master Vannay,” he adds suddenly. “He knows loads of things.”

“Thomas, you’re- you’re going too fast, I don’t understand,” Alain says, and Thomas is moved, all a-sudden, and puts his hands on Alain’s face, gazing into his lovely eyes, gray like the clouds that race ahead of the seabirds on their flight home.

“It’s always us,” Thomas says slowly, trying to remember how things go. “You and me. Jamie. Bertie- Cuthbert, that is him- and Roland. That’s us. Every time.” He looks up at Alain, and his eyes are shining. His shoulder hurts again, but he pays it no mind. “We have to fix it. I keep seeing them, again and again, it’s like dreams, or memories-that-wasn’t, but it’s real, I’m sure of it.”

Alain’s hands are gentle, for being so small. “You see us, Tommy? Us five, always?”

Thomas’s smile falters, and Alain’s eyes widen. “What do you mean we always _die_ , Tommy?”

“I don’t know,” he says, lowering his eyes and hugging his hurt arm to his chest. “I know I knew once. Before. I’ll know it again, later, but I’ve forgot it. It’s how I know the sun makes the color that the sky was, or about the Place, or-”

Alain considers this, reading Thomas’s face after a moment.

“Can you remember this day, today, Thomas? Can you remember us speaking together so?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” Thomas says eventually. “I remember- I meet you when we are in class. I meet you when we’re six. But I also meet you when we’re five, many times. But sometimes we’re six again. I don’t know…”

“...Tommy, how many?” Alain asks slowly, and Thomas shrugs helplessly.

“I know you can do it,” he says resolutely. “You can use the Touch. The Touch will tell you what I remember, even if I can’t say it yet. I know you can.”

“But I can’t, Tommy, not like that, yet,” Alain says, and Thomas groans.

“Yes, I know, but. You will. You have done. You will again.” He reaches out again and flinches, hugging his arm back to his chest. “It hurts.”

“I see it hurts,” Alain says, tenderly touching his face. “What happened?”

Thomas hesitates, shaking his head. “Stitched poorly. Pulls out easy. All the time when I’m older, I know that.”

Alain frowns, and Thomas is moved to touch him again, his left hand moving to brush the curls out of Alain’s eyes.

“We can fix it,” he says confidently. “We must be brave and clever and kind, and we can fix it.”

“Fix what, Thomas?” Alain asks, and Thomas waves his arm.

“All of it. Everything. I don’t know. _Something_.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He’s sixteen years old- very nearly seventeen-and Gilead is burning. His hands are twitching at his sides. He thinks, watching the glow from as far away as he is, that he should get more tattoos, that they should find someone who can do colors. He thinks the fire will last with him forever.

This isn’t true. The fire will last with him for eight more years, and then he will die, and then he will forget the fire until he sees it again.

“You’ll hurt yourself,” Jamie says quietly from behind him.

“Shan’t,” Thomas replies, leaning against a rocky outcropping, and then he slips, scraping his arm against the stone. “That doesn’t count.”

“You’ve left blood on it,” Jamie points out, and Thomas touches the tiny scratches on his arm, and the light dabs of red on the stone.

“Free food for flies, then,” he mumbles. He turns to look at Jamie, and his friend- his best friend, loveliest friend, the boy who is the sea- is hollow-looking, exhausted.

“Does it make me… a bad person, if…” Thomas trails off, ducking his head. “I’m _relieved_. That’s an evil thing to say, is it not?”

“It’s not,” Jamie promises, and Thomas lets him wrap his arms around him, and his joints shift as his weight moves, and his body presses against Jamie’s, like rocks that slip into another hill and lay there to rest.

“We’ve been here before,” he murmurs into the top of Jamie’s head, and Jamie sighs.

“And what happened in the now-that-was-before, Tommy?” he asks, and Thomas rakes his blunt fingertips down Jamie’s back through his shirt, and is rewarded with a shiver and a sort of sideways wriggle.

He doesn’t want to tell Jamie that every time- like this time- he tries to find a way to tell Jamie how he feels, and that every time he backs away, like a coward.

“It doesn’t matter,” he mutters. “Just that we’re alive now.”

“Are we ever not?” Jamie asks, and Thomas shrugs, curling him closer.

“Are you afraid?” he asks, and Jamie is silent for a while, thinking.

“Reasonably so,” he says, and Thomas nods. “We should go and join the others.”

They’re too close to camp overnight, and too rattled and energized to think of sleeping, regardless. It is some days later- days of hard, relentless travel- that the ragged survivors and last scraps of Gilead finally stop, in order to give the animals a rest.

Roland approaches him slowly, and Thomas is struck with a memory of a fey, lovely man, mowing down screaming savages up a pockmarked hill. This teenager has a lot of growing yet, in his heart and body, but Thomas can see the echoes of the man, all the same.

Roland is staring patiently at his face. He seems to have all night.

Thomas realizes that he’s missing something important. “Cry pardon, Roland. I missed some of what you said.”

“What part did you miss, Thomas?” Roland asks, and Thomas shrugs. He’s been having more trouble, the last day or so, than he usually does, his ears seeming to not at all grasp when he’s been spoken to, his body and brain tingling with waves of a cool, shivering weakness when he least expects it. He only knows for sure that Roland needs him to keep going, right now.

“All parts. All of it.” Roland, at least, doesn’t look surprised to know that his words flew past Thomas’s head like an empty wind.

“Alright,” Roland says, and he looks so sad and tired, and Thomas reaches for him on impulse, tucking him close. They’re very nearly the same height, but Roland is slighter than Thomas, and Thomas thinks he can feel the bones of Roland’s back.

“Oh, Roland, dear,” he murmurs, and Roland accepts the embrace stiffly, before gently disentangling himself. He looks embarrassed and flustered, though Thomas can’t imagine why.

“Thomas, please listen now,” he says, and Thomas does his best, though it’s hard- terribly hard- sometimes. Roland takes his hands in his, rubbing his thumbs against the knuckles of his first two fingers. “Thomas? Are you listening?”

“Aye, Roland, I hear you very well, my dinh,” Thomas says, and they’re both _very_ tired, he knows, but Roland still finds the energy to give him a small smile.

“Thomas, in the other- the times, you say, that you’ve seen our fall,” he says carefully, and Thomas can hear the pattern of Alain’s words, knows that Roland doesn’t understand or necessarily believe in him- he usually doesn’t, he thinks- but he believes Alain, and doesn’t have the imagination to think Alain is lying or confused. “What did we do this time, to hasten it so?”

“Ah, no, Roland,” Thomas breathes out, moved again to grab hold of him, but Roland patiently cradles his hands together, and he cannot act on it. “Roland, we’re always sixteen. We’re always the last. There are always traitors to the Affiliation, and there is always a Farson, and there is always a fire, and us five, aye, herding our straggle of survivors in the dark.”

Roland makes a soft, slightly impatient noise. “Why did you not tell my father, before it-?”

“Oh, no, I have,” Thomas says, his smile fading. “Ah, Roland, Sai Steven is- was- is?”

“Was,” Roland whispers softly.

“Alright,” Thomas says uncertainly. “Sai Steven was… wise, as you… as you know, but, ah. I’m just me. Usually he does nothing, for- well- I’m me, you know. He thinks me some simple child, most times. Once I waited til I was near-fourteen, for I didn’t want to see you hurt David, so I didn’t,” he adds, frowning reproachfully, and Roland’s face doesn’t change.

“What happened then, Thomas?” he prods, and Thomas shrugs painfully.

“I know not, Roland. Sai Steven sent me west and I was- I was-”

_roaming hands, twisting fingers back with audible snaps, laughing into his throat_

He’s not sure how many minutes pass- the moon’s light has moved in the sky, but that is no clear indication. Roland is still patiently sitting, still holding his hands. Thomas laughs shakily.

“Cry pardon, Roland, but when I came to Sai Steven at thirteen I was sent west, and I did not live very long that time, so I know not if Gilead’s fall happened the same, then. Only that I woke up again one day and it started all over.”

“Oh, Tommy,” Roland sighs, bowing his head, and again Thomas is struck with a memory of Roland- a real one, one he’s _sure_ happened this time- just after he’d come back from Mejis last year, after his lady mother died.

“I don’t know that the fall of Gilead is something that can be changed, Ro,” Thomas says gently, and Roland’s head whips up at that, tears standing unshed in his eyes.

“No,” he says, and his hands squeeze Thomas’s- without meaning to, Thomas knows, but he daren’t tell Roland to please stop, that he’s hurting him. “If this isn’t the last of the- of the times, Thomas, then you must try again to save it. There _must_ be a way that exists, Thomas.”

“Mayhap,” Thomas allows, his voice thin. “There may yet be, Roland, only- only-” The words jumble together on his tongue, and Roland releases his hands, suddenly.

“If you remember anything at all, Thomas, please tell me,” Roland says, and Thomas loves him terribly, this dark and haunted child who stands as their last leader.

“Yes, Roland,” he says in a small voice. “Only I know that I don’t always remember it before it happens, and often- often only _while_ it’s happening.”

Roland presses his mouth together and sighs, and his disappointment crushes Thomas worse than anything he could have said.

Thomas waits until he leaves- he doesn’t want to cross Roland’s sight again, not when he’s made Roland so sad- and he creeps around the darker edges of the camp, just to be sure he doesn’t accidentally force anyone to see him. He expects to see only Jamie with his bedroll laid out neatly next to his, and is surprised and pleased to see Alain and Bert there also, and surprised and anxious, as well, that they know somehow what he and Roland spoke of, that they’re angry at him.

“Here comes Tommy-oh-donna, creeping like a nun,” Cuthbert singsongs at him, but his eyes flick down toward Thomas’s hands, the way he’s holding them to his chest. “Oh, _Thomas_ , come here.”

“Y-yes, Bertie?” Thomas says, mystified, but Cuthbert sits him down between Jamie and Alain, crouches down before him, massages the aches from his wrists, his palms, his fingers and thumbs. Thomas is struck with a thought. He knows he will get tattoos there, but he also knows that he _wants_ to get tattoos there. The wobbly anchor on his right forearm is alone, for now.

Jamie’s head is on his shoulder. Alain’s hand is low on his back, rubbing circles into the spot where he often aches. Cuthbert’s hands- clever, lovely hands, golden-brown and longfingered and strong, not like Thomas’s, nothing like Thomas’s pale and ungainly mitts- are gently realigning his bent fingers, pressing everything back into place, warming the skin there with soothing motions.

Alain is speaking to him, has been for some time. Has he been listening? He thinks he has not been. The fire is low, and Alain’s voice is soft, and Jamie is warm against him. Thomas tears his eyes away from the sight of Cuthbert’s lovely face, so like stars and starlight, and looks up at the skies above, so like Cuthbert’s gleaming eyes and the flash of his smile and the twist of his hair when he tucks it behind his ear just so.

“Both the sky,” Thomas says happily, and he feels Alain’s hand slow, feels Cuthbert’s hands still. “Both the sky, day and night, same sky, the sky and the sky and the sea, aye.”

“Well, dears, I think we’ve lost him for now,” Cuthbert jokes, and Alain’s free hand goes to his chest, where a rose will one day be tattooed.

“We love you, too, Tommy,” Alain says into his ear, and he shivers, his eyes closing as Jamie catches him, as Alain’s hands steady him. His head swims- a hand touches his face, his throat, his chest again.

“You’re tired,” Alain says, and this is surely true, he doesn’t remember sleeping, not since the day before the fire, but he might also have forgotten, he forgets so many things now. They’re all tired, though. So many times they’ve come a-racing from the steps of the castle. Thomas lets out a soft, moaning sigh. He’s tired, aye, and lost, it seems.

“Not lost, now, it’s not so,” Alain tells him, and he knows Alain is only saying it to soothe him, but knowing that Alain would try soothes him, all the same.

“Wan’ Jamie,” he murmurs, and a vaguely disconnected part of him wonders at the slight slur of his speech.

“You always do, old boy,” Cuthbert’s voice murmurs, and he can feel his clever hands at his brow, brushing his hair from his face. “We’ll not keep the two of you from sleep any longer, then.”

 _Oh Jay oh Jamie_ , Thomas thinks, feeling half-drunk, feeling Jamie’s arms circling him, feeling Jamie’s head on his chest. _Oh dear oh love oh Jamie, my Jamie._

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He’s going mad. He must be.

Thomas knows- he knows, he knows he knows- that tonight is their last, that Alain’s death is the beginning of their ends, and as soon as he hears the twin thunderclaps of gunfire he clasps his hands to his face.

“They didn’t mean it, they didn’t mean to, it shouldn’t be so, Jamie, they didn’t mean to,” he babbles, rocking in place on the grassy floor of his camp, and Jamie’s hands are tentative on his neck and hands- tracing here, the crossed guns he’s had since seventeen, tracing here the siguls on his knuckles, fair fortune, fair weather, fair company, tracing here the tattoos on his forearms, briar thorns and rigging, an anchor for home, a bear for ferocity.

It doesn’t matter that they didn’t mean to. Roland and Cuthbert return to the camp bloodsoaked and haunted, and the thing in their arms is not Alain, not any longer, no more than the blackened and charred skeleton of Colton Whitman is Thomas’s father, lying somewhere in the depths of Gilead-that-was. Thomas can’t look, just the same, turning his face away, tearing at his hair, beating at his chest until a thumb cracks loose and he feels a bruise forming in the center of the radiant rose.

“Tommy, stop,” Jamie pleads with him, and Thomas does, looking wildly up into his eyes, beautiful like the sea, yes, but he’s never seen it, has he? Could be the sea isn’t real, could be none of this is. It shouldn’t be so, it shouldn’t be that he should see his beautiful and lovely friends die, it shouldn’t be so that he sees it always, it shouldn’t be so.

Jamie’s hands are on his face now, and his eyes are bright with grief and worry. He’s speaking, and it’s unlike Thomas not to listen when Jamie’s speaking, but it occurs to him that one of his guns is in his hand, and it occurs to him that the barrel’s in his mouth.

“ _Thomas_ ,” Roland says, and a shiver of obedience runs through him at the sound of his dinh’s voice. “Thomas, holster your piece. Put it away.”

Thomas slowly draws the barrel out- _my word_ , he thinks faintly, _I well and truly jammed that in there_ \- and a flash of memory explodes across his vision-

- _roaming hands, a familiar laugh, i’d recognize that anywhere_ -

-and he jerks his head away so suddenly that he chips a tooth. He stares at the gun, before putting it in his holster, aye, where it belongs, that’s true enough.

He feels very light. He feels like he may wander off the face of the earth, and tumble in the wind like an empty thing, and that would be alright, he reckons.

“Thomas,” Roland commands, and he is very suddenly where Jamie was- is?- no, was. Jamie and Cuthbert are at his sides now. Roland’s hands are lightning on his shoulders, and his eyes are lightning, too. “Thomas, answer me.”

“Cry pardon,” Thomas says, and for some reason Roland flinches back from him, before pulling him close, his hand moving to the side of Thomas’s neck, to the crossed guns, aye, that mean the bullet couldn’t have killed him. His hand- oh, what a killer’s hands he has, their Roland- strokes the side of his face and neck, and Thomas sighs, his cheek pressing into the cup of Roland’s palm.

“Tommy, will you stand with us one last time?” Roland asks softly. “One last battle, to stand and be true?”

What choice does he have? Thomas smiles faintly.

“Not my last, Ro, or yours,” he murmurs. “Aye, you have me, and I think you know.”

“Then stand, Thomas, son of Colton,” Roland tells him, oh so gentle. “Give glory to your father’s name, and to the name of Alain Johns, and to the name of your ka-tet, who you love. Stand for their sakes, and for yours.”

“That I must, for love them I do,” Thomas agrees, and why does Cuthbert look at his dinh so, with mingled love and loathing in his eyes? It is a puzzle, sure enough, one he means to ask Cuthbert about, in another when, in another where.

Thomas moves as if in a dream. Is it dawn already? He is sure that time must have gone soft and drippy somewhere. He stands, and there are two thousand men, screaming, running towards them. Is it not a dream? Is it not safe, then, safe as The Place, to turn to his Jamie now?

“Jamie,” Thomas says, smiling. “I love y-”

Jamie’s head explodes in a mist of gristle and blood. Thomas blinks, and all the sound of the world rushes into his ears at once.

“Ah,” Thomas sighs. “Ax handle.” He shoots, and a man’s hand turns to splinters of red, and nothing hits Bert.

He fires seven times. Seven men- same seven? He can’t tell any of them apart now- fall dead.

“Pike, Ro,” he comments, firing two shots into a man who falls steps away from his dinh.

The man with the wooden shield is still on his right, alas, and falls all of a holler to the ground with a shattered shield and a boneless arm as the man on the left falls dead.

“Reload,” he tells himself. Does it matter? He makes all twelve bullets find their homes in his guns, anyway. No point in wasting.

“Cort’d have my hide if I _did_ drop one,” he says confidentially, as a bullet grazes him- the shooter falls dead, his head missing, how very like his Jamie.

He turns- the sun is still not so high, and he shoots a man, and Cuthbert isn’t shot in the kidney, hurrah.

A sword shatters beside him, and the bullet that does it buries itself in the swordsman’s neck.

“Ah, thankee, Bert,” he murmurs, and the club is still, somehow, a surprise.

He is borne to the ground, three men dead and bleeding near him, and the kilted man approaches, and Thomas aims and cocks the gun with his last remaining bullet at the man’s blue-painted face.

“Catch this, you chary bastard,” he says, and when the man tenses he chucks his empty gun instead, and it bounces off the man’s forehead and shoulder, red blood flowing at once. Thomas laughs- hysterical, shrieking laughter that hurts to leave him- and he keeps laughing, even as the hand holding his still-loaded gun is crushed to the ground under the kilted man’s boot, even as he stomps until Thomas’s bent and nerveless fingers can no longer _feel_ the gun, much less hold it.

“ _Poor wandering one_ ,” the kilted man croons into his ear, into the corner of his jaw, and Thomas breathes out in a moan, the man’s one hand resting on the bony corner of his hip, the other burying its fingertips into the wreck of his knee. “I almost have you, don’t I? I very nearly do. It would be very easy, little gun, for you to beg now.”

“No, never, Daddy, I shan’t, never-never,” Thomas giggles breathlessly, and in the red and spotty field of his vision the kilted man throws back his head and laughs.

“If only that old goat Colton Whitman could see his boy now,” he chuckles, and Thomas’s head swims. The hand on his hip moves between his legs. “Is that who you were hoping for, lad?”

“Oh, no,” Thomas says, his heart pounding. “No, sai, I was h-hopin’ it’d be John Farson himself, so’s I could tell him _in person_ to go fuck himself.”

“Close, but no cigar,” the kilted man says, grinning bloodily at him, and his hand closes like a vice until something in his grip gives way with a pop that lances up through Thomas’s spine and belly. He is aware of a ragged, screaming moan, he is aware that he is slumped against the kilted man’s chest, he is aware of the stench of blood and the feel of something hot and wet running down the inside of his thighs, and he thinks deliriously that there’s no way Al will get the stains out now.

The kilted man stands, and Thomas has a dizzying moment of recollection, of terror, before the man steps away, speaking to someone over his head.

“Draw it out. Make it slow. Just make sure he can be identified later.”

And another voice, closer by, “That’s what the tattoos are for, ain’t they?”

It is drawn out. It is slow.

His mouth won’t work, nor his lungs, and he asks blindly, reaching through the Touch that he knows is a part of Alain’s mind, _Al, where are you? Where is Jamie? Where are you, Alain, and where oh where is my Jay_ -

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The beginnings are always the same.

It is a source of much argument and strife, the fact that Verise Whitman refuses to listen to her husband Colton, the fact that she always goes to give comfort when her infant boy wakes screaming in the night. Verise Malatesta-that-was, it is much whispered, is a noblewoman of the seaside Baronies, the highest-honored lady of stone-studded Argenbie Hold, and their ways are wilder there, their heroes pirates and harriers, their women fierce and scornful of men, and certainly scornful of the soft men of Gilead.

And besides, it is whispered further, what sort of mother leaves her son, and what sort of wife leaves her husband? Better off without her by far, it is agreed, the son and the husband are.

At least the husband has his ka-tet, it is whispered, at least the boy has his. The boy’s teacher stops and watches him- usually a dreamer, which is a worrying trait in a soldier, the boy’s attention is held rapt, and he is poring over a sheaf of parchment scrolls.

Vannay comes closer, and beholds two things: first that the boy’s right forearm is badly wrapped, as if he’d been attended by a drunk doctor, and second that the boy is not studying his languages or even reading old stories- the many instructive diagrams give it away, even if Vannay couldn’t read upside-down.

“Thomas,” Vannay says, and then, when it is clear the boy doesn’t- or can’t- hear him, he clears his throat and raises his voice. “Thomas. Why are you not studying?”

“Studying?” Thomas asks blankly, then, as he registers who it is he’s speaking to, “Oh! Sai Vannay, hello! I’m studying!”

“You don’t seem to be studying the work I assigned,” Vannay says gently, and Thomas looks down at it, then up at him. “You do seem to be poring over an instruction manual on how to tattoo sailors, lad.”

“Aye, so I am,” Thomas says, and his sunny grin is a rare enough sight in Vannay’s classroom that he’s almost sorry to chase it away. The other children are glancing at them now, peering over their own scrolls and pens. “I want to memorize it.”

“Yes, but surely you can see why this is inappropriate,” Vannay says, and Thomas makes a shocked face at him, eyes very round over his beaky nose. “Thomas, you were supposed to be working on your sums, and practicing your languages.”

“Oh, but,” Thomas says anxiously, his fingers twitching, as though he grasps invisible pens, perhaps. “I’m no good at sums or languages, Sai, but I _am_ good at making a tattoo needle, and I want to be good at tattoos.”

Vannay looks at the badly-done bandage on the boy’s arm, and notes unhappily that what he thought was a bit of old, spotted blood could, indeed, be a bit too dark for blood.

Aware of the eyes of the other boys, watching them in earnest now, Vannay gives his arm a tap. “Is that what this is, Thomas?”

“Oh, yes, look!” The boy’s pride at his work- at having an adult ask to see it- is disheartening in its rarity, as well. He peels off the rag tied round his right arm, and yes, that is certainly a tattoo, the lines of the anchor thick and wobbly, the curves of it somewhat lopsided. Vannay looks at it, then back up at the glowing face of the child. “Tis an anchor, see.”

“I do see,” he says, biting back the urge to be short with the boy he so rarely has the chance to praise. “ _Why_ , Thomas, did you-”

The boy’s eagerness bubbles forth, interrupting Vannay’s attempt at a scold. “Anchors for home, Sai! See here you,” he chirps, shuffling through parchments until he finds the one he wants and showing it to his tutor. “Anchors is home, and it’s always an anchor first, and it is tradition, Sai, for those that love the sea!”

There is a barely perceptible snort from young Alain, which is surprising, because Vannay is sure the boys are friends even before they’re tet. And Alain puts him in mind of his own son, and Vannay surprises himself with a thought: _Wally would have loved this odd boy_.

“And what does your father say about this, lad?” Vannay asks. He means it to be stern, but he loses his nerve halfway through, at the boy’s alarmed expression.

“I know not, Master Vannay, only please-” he trails off, looking despondent. “He doesn’t like anything that comes of my mother, so he doesn’t.”

“Ah,” Vannay says. Well, he can’t just punish the boy for studying something and applying its principles, and he certainly can’t punish a boy for wanting to connect with his absent mother’s people, can he? A thought strikes him- he certainly can give old Cort a good chuckle from this, and Cort can probably discourage anyone of this pack of boys against doing something silly, and surely a twelve year old giving up the gun to be a tattooist is very silly.

Vannay clears his throat. “Well, Thomas, I’m sure it comes as no surprise to you that I still want you to do the work I’ve assigned you. You will have to put this work away for now, and only resume it when your assigned work is finished. You will have to come here instead of the dining hall at dinner-time, in order to finish it.”

“Oh,” Thomas says, fingers twirling the edges of his parchment. “Yes, Master Vannay.”

“And Thomas-” Vannay gently covers his tattoo again, wrapping it a little better than it had been. “I want you to gather up all of the things you used to give yourself this tattoo. We’re going to have to show this to Cort.”

“Yes, Master Vannay,” Thomas says glumly, packing up his instruction pages- then, incredibly, packing his other things into his small sack and heading for the door to the classroom. Vannay sighs a little at his back despite himself- clearly, the boy’d only heard that part of his instruction, and hadn’t realized that he was meant to finish his classwork first.

Ah well. He’s an easy enough child to spend an evening with, and Vannay can grade their tests with company, for once.

It is only an hour or so before the rest of the class is dismissed- he knows the boys, at least some of them, will snoop, but at least Thomas will have the pretense of privacy.

It occurs to Vannay, marching the boy to Cort’s hut with his skinny arms full of rough tools, that if there was a boy who was _less_ suited to the life of a gunslinger than this one, he’s never met him.

“What’s this,” Cort says gruffly- Vannay meets his one-eyed gaze over the boy’s head, glancing significantly down at his right arm.

“S’needles an’ ink,” Thomas mumbles toward the ground at Cort’s feet.

“Aye, that I can see without help. What is _that_?” Cort snaps, snatching the boy’s arm lightning-quick and turning it out so he can ogle the bandage. Some of the boy’s tools drop to the grass, though he’s quick to readjust his grip and avoid dropping most of it.

Thomas mumbles something.

“I can see it’s a bandanna,” Cort says evenly. “What’s this under the bandanna?”

Thomas lights up immediately- his smile is altogether too radiant, startling Cort slightly as he drops the rest of his tools and eagerly rips the cloth away to show him the tattoo.

“Tis an anchor!” he squeaks proudly. “Anchors are for home, it’s always the anchor I do first, see, and then it’s the bullets and the thorns later, and the crossed guns when I’m seventeen, sai-”

Cort is struggling very hard not to laugh. Vannay savors the look on his old friend’s face.

“He should not be tattooing himself, as you well know,” Vannay says, because Cortland is starting to lose the battle against his laughter. “Even if he weren’t too young for it, many needles carry infection. You could lose an arm that way, you know.”

“I’m left-handed,” Thomas says cheerfully, yelping as Cort twists his arm slightly.

“Don’t speak back to your elders in that tone,” Cort says, exasperated, but he releases Thomas’s wrist soon enough. “You’ll be no-handed if you don’t watch thy tongue.”

Thomas’s eyes light up at the prospect, and Cort quickly changes the subject. “Did you get one of your friends to build the needle, Thomas?”

“Oh, no, I made it,” he says, his cheer a little diminished as he rubs his elbow. “I made lots,” he adds, gently toeing the pile at his feet. “I can make a whole lot of them.”

“...I don’t doubt that,” Cort says quietly, kneeling down for a moment to pick some of Thomas’s tools up. “Did you steal the ink yourself?”

“Oh, no, of course not,” Thomas gasps, wide-eyed. “I made it, there’s a recipe on one of the scrolls, sai, you take ashes, see, and-”

“Thomas,” Cort interrupts, grasping his arm again and running a finger along the design. Though wobbly, the lines are dark and thick.  “You did it _all_ yourself? You made the needle and the ink, and you sat and gave your own arm a poke until a shape came of it?”

“Oh, aye, Cort,” Thomas says warily. “It’s always me, I didn’t want to tattoo Bert until I’d had practice, see.”

“...Thomas, you are not to tattoo Cuthbert,” Cort says sternly.

“I am not to tattoo Bert anymore,” the boy agrees. “Until he asks again when we’re grown, but that won’t be for, oh, four years at least.”

Cort has to bite down very hard on his own lip. Vannay steps in before his face can get any redder.

“Thomas, when you are of age and _no other time_ , you may think of this again. Until you are of age, that is the end of this tattoo business, understand?” Vannay searches the boy’s face for any indication that he understands, and Cort has to give him a light shake. “Alright, Thomas?”

“Not til we’re of age,” Thomas repeats. “Yes, Sai.”

Cort releases him, delicately gathering the handmade needles. Thomas makes a soft noise in his throat, and Cort shoots him a less strained glance.

“I’ll not destroy a thing you _made_ , Thomas,” he says, and Thomas’s eyes widen, as though it simply hadn’t occurred to him that Cort wouldn’t do that. “But I will be keeping them in my home until you win your guns from me, lad.”

“Oh,” Thomas says, then, brightening considerably. “That’s not bad, that’s only three years from now.”

Cort snorts, then stops, seeing as Vannay does that the boy is entirely serious.

Thomas watches them curiously, an odd emotion dawning over his face, and Vannay sighs.

“Thomas, you’d only be fifteen. _This_ is why you need to practice your sums-” he starts.

“Masters Vannay and Cort,” the boy interrupts, eyes pleading.

“We haven’t changed our minds about the tattoos,” Cort says sternly.

“No! It’s not the tattoos! I don’t have the Touch,” he adds quickly. Cort’s brow furrows. “I have- I- it’s not the Touch,” he explains again. “Things happen, and they already happened. And I remember them, every time, but they’re different, so I don’t know how to fix it.”

The radiance of the boy’s earlier mood is gone- he looks at them, desperate and terrified, and the boy sinks to his knees, his hands clasped. Something cold worms through Vannay’s gut as he trades a worried look with Cort- the boy’s always been sensitive. _Odd_. Not suited, as many others have also noted, to be a gunslinger, though he’s certainly stuck to it with the persistence of one.

Some lads wilt under the pressure, and take their leave of the classes willingly, seeking homes and lives elsewhere. And some- those closest to losing their chance to win their guns, usually- snap, sending themselves west in mind if not physically going themselves. More than one cell in the small but clean sanatorium houses a former student; it just hadn’t occurred to Vannay that they might send one so young.

“Thomas, get up,” Cort says gruffly. “There is no room here for silly games.”

“ _Our lives are half over_ ,” the boy cries, sending a foreboding chill through Vannay. “Our lives are half over, don’t you see? Nobody ever believes me, please, but they’d believe you, aye, they would! Alain knows, Alain’s Seen it in my thoughts, he knows I remember, you can ask him, and you can tell Sai Deschain, and it doesn’t have to happen, it can be different!”

Cort gives Vannay the only confused look he’s ever seen him make in front of one of their boys.

“What can be different, Thomas?” Vannay asks, prompting the boy with a hand on the top of his head.

“We can fix it,” the boy repeats, turning his eyes up to Vannay’s face. “We can fix it. I’ve seen Gilead burn, Sai, so many times, we can stop it, we can fix it.”

“Thomas-” Vannay starts to say, and the boy’s face goes wild, and he scrambles back.

“ _No,_ you don’t believe me, no, he sent me west the only time he listened, I don’t want to die yet, I want to fix it, I want to save Jamie, I can’t save him if I’ve died, I don’t want to go-”

“ _Thomas_ ,” Cort barks, and the boy freezes in the act of fleeing. “No one’s going to send you west at twelve, lad-”

“No, Cort, I was thirteen the last time I tried to tell Sai Deschain,” he says, his voice queerly calm even as he quivers in terror. “I don’t want to die again, I don’t. I think it was a bad one, as far as the deaths go, but it may be only that I can remember that one well now, and the other ones I can’t remember so good, just that it’s usually the blue-face man who works for the Good Man that does it.”

Cort stalks toward him, picking him up by the scruff of his shirt to raise him to eye-level. “This had better not be some game, boy.”

“No,” Thomas says, his voice very small. “I think it’s only paint, Cort, cos he bleeds red, he does.”

Cort gently lowers him to the ground. Cuthbert Allgood, perhaps yes, but the Whitman boy has never been a prankster, and certainly not one so ghoulish.

“We will get young Alain,” he says gruffly, and the boy sobs, throwing his arms around Cort’s middle.

This can’t end well, Vannay thinks, his old heart breaking.

“Have you spoken of this to anyone else?” he asks, and Thomas shakes his head, pauses, then nods.

“Aye, every time, Master Vannay,” he pipes up, then, at their expressions, “oh, but this time? Alain and Jamie, and- I think Bert? Might be Bert isn’t until after him and Roland and Alain comes back from their trip,” he adds, trailing off. “And Roland, when he’s not pink-sick, but that’s after more things, I reckon.”

“We’ll go and gather them,” Vannay says, scrubbing a hand down into his beard. He doesn’t know what to make of it, but- but the boy is absolutely certain that he thinks he speaks the truth, and that alone is enough to take this deadly seriously.

They take the boy upstairs- there’s a mostly-unused classroom, and Vannay tells him to wait there, like a good boy, while they get Alain and Jamie.

And the poor boy looks at him with new eyes, relief and gratitude and love shining fiercely in him, and it would have been better if that could have been his last memory of Thomas Whitman.

“I don’t much like the idea of leaving him alone,” Cort says softly, and Vannay pauses, visions of the boy finding some way to hurt himself dancing through his head.

“Gods, no,” he agrees. He spots a guardsman- singing softly to himself, clearly heading back to his home- and waves him over. “You there, stand watch. Don’t allow the boy to… to touch anything sharp or bring himself to harm, understand?”

“Yes, I do,” the guardsman says seriously.

Though as they walk down the hallway, Vannay can hear the man singing under his breath.

 _Poor wandering one, though thou hast surely strayed, take heart with grace, thy steps retrace, poor wandering one_.

Vannay and Cort barely get to the dining hall where the other boys are eating before young Alain leaps to his feet, his face gone all white and his eyes flashing with urgent horror.

“He’s calling me, he’s calling me-” he gasps, and Cort barely catches him before he runs headlong into the heavy door. Vannay doesn’t have the Touch either- just a touch of it, as he likes to say, just enough to know when his students are minding him- but he looks at Alain and he _knows_ , all the same.

The guardsman is already dead by the time they get there. His eyes are glassy and there is a week-old knife wound in his back- later, the court magician will suggest, with the lurid air of a gossiping woman, that he’d been murdered, and that his murderer had imbued his corpse with a demon, perhaps, and ordered him to make an example of the first apprentice he saw.

It is no comfort.

The boy is still alive, red all down his front, his hands red and slick, pressed fruitlessly against the gaping, torn hole of his gut. He looks at his hands as though he’s never seen them before, and up at Vannay when he steps in. Cort follows, kneeling at once.

On the stone wall over the boy’s head, the staring eye- sigul of the Good Man, indeed- has been drawn in his own blood.

“This’s new,” Thomas mumbles, choking on his own blood, and Cort puts a hand on the top of his messy head of hair. “I don’t… I don’t… how?”

Whatever it is the boy doesn’t understand, his fluttering heart stills before he can discover the answer.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The beginnings are always the same.

There is a lost boy who is born to be a gunslinger. He knows this from an early age, the way the others do. There is a mother who loves him and cares for him, until one day she suddenly does not. There is a father who watches carefully, an unsprung trap. There is a boy as lovely as the day sky, and a boy as lovely as the night sky, and a boy as lovely as the entire sea, and they orbit their fey and lovely leader. The lost boy loves them more than anything, loves them more than Gilead.

Indeed, the lost boy thinks he might hate Gilead.

Thomas knows better than to try to trust anyone else with this. Alain could help, aye, and maybe one day they’ll discover the secret to it, but Alain always dies first, except for when Thomas does, and Thomas doesn’t know if those times are different, just that they’re never the _last_ time. He loves Alain so, and doesn’t want to burden what there is of Alain’s abbreviated childhood.

There are thirteen of them in that last graduating class of apprentices- the younger classes have disbanded, had parents who fled ahead of the incoming slaughter. Thomas hopes some of them live full lives, lives of peace, but so far as he knows, such a thing never happens.

Roland is there, watching. Roland’s had his guns for a year now, and wears them well, Thomas thinks. He is lovely, always has been, and it startles Thomas to think that he’s not sure if Roland’s mother is alive or dead, now. It’s a close thing, he knows. Alain and Cuthbert have their guns, too, but Alain and Cuthbert are still new to them, and they didn’t wear them to the ceremony at all.

Why would they? There are only young gunslingers and their teachers, here.

Thomas- the last and least of all of them- is called last to receive his guns. He kneels at Cort’s bedside, receiving his blessing. His teacher’s huge, rough hand brushes his hair back so he can rest his hand against the side of Thomas’s neck. Something strikes him as important about it.

“Rise in love, gunslinger,” Cort croaks- and how strange, Thomas thinks, how sad that he’s never seen Cort die a warrior’s death.

Thomas stands solemnly, looks at his guns, sees that they’re loaded, twelve shells in total.

“Oh,” Thomas says suddenly, brightening up. “I know! I don’t get the crossed guns til I’m seventeen!”

Alain springs to his feet, feeling the shape of his sudden thoughts.

“ _Tommy, no_ -” he cries out, and Thomas shoots him first, the left half of his face disappearing. Thomas aims without turning and puts a bullet in Cort’s chest; he hums a little as he draws on his lovely Jamie.

“I love you, you know,” he says apologetically, and Jamie’s head explodes into a cloud of gristle and bone. Six more of their fellow gunslingers die, and is it not better? Is it not cleaner, now? A shot clips his ear, startling him slightly.

“Thank you, Bertie,” he says gravely, thunder in his hands beckoning his friend toward his death. A slingshot tumbles to the floor, followed by a merry cascade of balls. Crimson rosettes blossom on Cuthbert’s chest, like his mother’s red flower, like carrying bright red flowers always, and he catches himself crooning at the sight.

“Lovely, lovely, lovely,” he chants. He doesn’t need to check his guns, for he knows he has only the one left, and that one can be for dear Roland, aye. “Come, Roland, come sleep now, please-”

Something hot and very hard beats into his right lung, and he blinks at it, dismayed.

“No, my dear, no,” he says, blood bubbling past his lips, and Roland is gazing at him, his face very white, his guns not shaking at all.

“Do us all a favor, turn that gun on yourself, love,” Thomas advises, taking a wobbly step closer. Roland’s second bullet goes through his throat, and he hasn’t got enough time to see if Roland listens.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 warnings: hypnosis, psychological torture, sexual torture, explicit rape, implied/referenced incest, self harm

The beginnings are always the same.

 Thomas is as close to silent as he can be, all through the first and second day of gunslinger classes, and when four shadows pass over him in the farthest corner of the training field the six-year-old flinches away from them, eyes on the grass between his feet.

 “Are you Thomas?” one of the boys asks, and he clamps his hands over his face, don’t look, can’t look, don’t look at them, beautiful like the skies, beautiful like the sea, lovely and darkling and tincted.

 “He is,” says the soft, sad voice of poor Alain, beautiful Alain, good Alain who has only been good to him, so he has.

 “You don’t talk, either?” one asks, sounding disappointed. That’ll be Cuthbert, good old Bertie, red roses blossoming on white, holes in his best new shirt. Thomas doesn’t know what it means, only that it’s bad, only that he did it, somehow, somewhen.

 “Not everyone has to talk,” the first boy says sternly, and Thomas can see him in his head, a little boy with a man’s shadow, mowing down screaming blue men on a pockmarked hill at dawn.

 The fourth boy doesn’t talk either, but he does sit down next to Thomas, and Thomas lets out a small, hiccupping sob.

 “Jamie says you don’t have to talk, Thomas,” Alain says quietly. “Only I don’t know how to tell you this, but you’ve been screaming, Tommy, all this time.”

 Thomas’s hands clap to his mouth, and Alain puts his hands on his face; small, pudgy hands, exactly like Thomas’s at this age. Thomas raises his eyes, and Alain’s so lovely, both eyes together, the silver of high clouds sailing through a morning sky. Tears prickle at Thomas’s eyes, and he hiccups again.

 “How long?” Thomas asks, shivering.

 “Forever,” Alain says slowly. “You’ve been screaming my name since I knew it was my name, Tommy.”

The tears come in earnest, and the hiccups as well, bad and wicked boy, Bad Tommy, wicked and evil and naughty and bad boy, aye.

 “No,” Alain says patiently, “you’re not wicked, Tommy. You’re only six.”

 Thomas buries his face in his hands. Jamie tugs a little on a lock of his hair until he turns to look at him.

 “Hile, Thomas,” he says, offering his hand, lovely and small, berry-red on the back of his hand and in a few dabs at his jaw. “I’m Jamie.”

 Thomas gingerly grasps it. Jamie smiles, and Thomas’s heart sings despite himself.

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 In many ways all things are the same. The boys learn archery and falconry and gunnery- well, most of them do. Thomas is a fair enough shot with a gun- not a natural, nothing like Roland or even Bert, but easily taught, as though he’d learned some of it before. Archery is a study in painful failure, though, as the boy doesn’t seem capable of drawing a bowstring without dislocating at least one of his fingers- eventually he gets some practice on Cuthbert’s slingshot, and does well enough with it that Cortland Andrus calls it good.

 Falconry is an unmitigated disaster, through and through. If his first attempt with a hawk hadn’t been a well-trained castle bird, the damned thing would have flown free- as it was, Thomas ends up being bullied down to Dr. DeCurry’s to have the length of his right arm stitched up, and the hawk has to be lured down from one of the castle trees.

 Thomas is very careful not to speak or look at Dr. DeCurry. He thinks it is entirely possible that if he does, he might take the needle from Sai DeCurry’s hand and stab him with it, and possibly that would only help a little bit, and possibly that would make things go very bad very quickly, this time.

 “Most children cry,” Dr. DeCurry says cheerfully, tying off a knot. Something in Thomas tells him that this cheeriness is false. “Most children ask silly questions, or play silly games.”

 His father is standing over him, a hand on the back of his neck. Thomas considers very seriously that he would only have time to stab _one_ of them.

 “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” he says finally, and his father’s hand twitches at his back, but Col Whitman says nothing.

  _no, never, daddy, i shan’t, never-never_

 “Well. Perhaps I’ll see you again, hm?”

 Thomas stares at him in baleful silence, and has to be led out of the clinic and back to the barracks, so he does, for every time his father lets him go he slows to a stop. He keeps looking at the long line of stitches on his arm. Will it scar? Aye, he thinks so, and that is fine. It lies along the side of his arm. The anchor will cover some of it, and there is plenty of room for the Great Ship, sixteen sails and geometrically perfect rigging, nested in a tangle of blue waves. The scar will end before the knotted rigging at his wrist, too, and that is good.

 “T’was more than I’ve heard you speak in a year,” his father says tentatively. He doesn’t reply; he’s very nearly eight and for almost two years he’s been trying very, very hard to be a very good boy. It helps that he has Alain, and it helps that his friends- his ka-tet, as they will be, over and over, forever and ever- seem to know when he gets an urge to do something he is sure he shouldn’t do.

 There is a soft curl in the back of his mind, like the honey-colored curls on Alain’s head, like the warm press of his cheek against Thomas’s shoulder. Alain mayhap felt him wanting to stab his father, or Jamie’s father. Possibly Alain felt him want to sink his teeth into his father’s wrist to make him let go. Either way, he sends him softness, reminding him not to. It is good. Thomas sends back agreement, trust, love.

 He yanks past once Col walks him to the barracks, and then goes at a jog, dead-set on finding the right door- it’s curious, but they’re not the same, time to time, and he knows he hates to burst into some other boy’s room.

 He is careful, though. Cuthbert is reading a book in bed when he stumbles into the room.

 “Tommy?” Bert’s eyes, so lovely and dark, flicker over him. “The bird got you pretty good, it seems.”

  _Come sit_ , Bert’s eyes say. It’s usually Cuthbert or Roland he goes to, because he never can shake the idea that he and Jamie are being watched, all the time, _everywhere_ but certainly in their bedrooms, most of all.

 He flops into Bert’s bed, laying his head on Bert’s lap. Cuthbert, he knows, would never let anyone hurt him.

  _Of course not,_ Alain agrees distantly, and Thomas closes his eyes, safe inside, safe outside.

 “Bertie?” he asks sleepily. “How long do hawks live to be?”

 “Oh, I don’t know, Tommy, why don’t you ask Master Vannay?” Cuthbert suggests, knowing that Thomas won’t.

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The answer, Thomas learns, is thirty years, give or take. The information sours in his mouth at fifteen, when word spreads that Roland has challenged Cort for his guns, first through the voiceless ripples of their ka-tet, next through the excited shouting as Cuthbert runs up to him.

 Jamie sits at his side, watching their friend march out to meet Cort, David on one arm. Jamie- loveliest still, every time- gives him a concerned look, putting his hand in Thomas’s, down between their thighs, where no one else might spy them. It’s a tiny relief, to know that one or both of their fathers couldn’t see it.

 “Roland only thinks David is old because Roland is young,” Thomas says, watching Roland’s back. “He thinks David is too old for falconing. But David is a hawk naturally, Jay, and left alone he’d have another twenty years to be a hawk. Did’ee know that?”

 Jamie’s thumb brushes over his knuckles. _No, I didn’t_.

 “Aye,” Thomas says softly. “Much like us, I reckon.”

 It’s taken most of the last eight years for him to unlearn his inclination to shy away from anger and annoyance at the members of his ka-tet. It’s still uncomfortable, it still gnaws dreadfully at him, but he knows, now, that he’s allowed. And Roland, unfortunately, is being dreadful, like the shadow of a thunderhead on the horizon is dreadful, like the crackle of fire in a dry forest is dreadful.

 The battle starts. Thomas, knowing how it ends, keeps his eyes screwed shut. A hawk is still just a small creature, for all that God gave it knives, and he feels sure that Cort was kind to him once, in another when. He does not fear for Roland; he has come to believe that nothing will ever harm Roland, not really.

 It’s not as slow or drawn as he fears it will be, but a flinch goes through him at every one of David’s cries.

 Jamie’s fingers curl in a little, and Thomas wonders, like a man on a bridge who sees a far drop, what would happen. If he… just stayed, holding Jamie’s hand. If he just held on. If he didn’t fear being sent west for- for-

 -Thomas gulps in a great lungful of air, and Jamie is looking at him now, not at Roland, kneeling next to their fallen teacher.

 “M’glad,” he says hoarsely. “He’s safe. He won’t be sent West.”

  _I was sent west at least once._

  _Yes. You’ve said._

 Jamie’s hand tightens around his. Thomas rubs the heel of his palm against his eyes, sniffling. He’s aware that he should let go. He thinks- perhaps selfishly, perhaps not- that no one could blame him for holding onto his ka-mate, not at such a charged moment as this, not when things among their tet have started their irrevocable change.

 Thomas slips his hand away, standing. “Come on. Roland won’t get another chance to see me before he goes away.”

 He’s not too sure what Roland goes away to Mejis for. It’s usually Cuthbert and Alain with him- sometimes, frighteningly, it’s Cuthbert and Jamie with him, though he recalls dimly that Alain is a great comfort to him those times, and sometimes it’s Alain and Jamie, and that is also very frightening, though he recalls dimly that Cuthbert is generally a great comfort and certainly always a distraction from those times. And usually there is a secret, aye, and Roland comes back pink-sick, though he thinks the times and times that Roland’s trusted him enough to say what happened in Mejis and in the journey home are buried in the mists, rare as they are.

 He knows there’s always a girl. He knows he’ll know her name again soon enough, though not, he thinks sadly, have the chance to meet her himself.

 He knows he never goes with Roland. He is the last and least of this final crop of gunslingers, he remembers, and is the last and least of Roland’s friends, as well. He thinks he might be something of a burden, if his memories-that-weren’t are right.

 Jame’s hand alights on his elbow, and he is jolted out of his stormy thoughts.

 “Come, come,” Thomas says vaguely, his mind fizzling and blank for a moment while he tries to wrestle himself back into being the good boy and apprentice he’s meant to be at fifteen. It takes longer than it should- why are they standing on the field? Why is Roland- oh, yes, _yes_ , Roland’s guns, yes- and he has to walk quickly to catch up to Roland as he leaves, carrying David in his arms.

 (Poor Jamie, though, a solid nine or so inches shorter and much of it leg, has to jog, because Thomas forgets often to mind his pace, even when it’s his best and loveliest friend with him.)

 “Hile, Gunslinger,” Thomas says softly, and Roland looks at him, unsurprised and relieved and grim and glad, all together. Thomas inhales sharply- he sees, with his eye as well as his mind, that Roland is a _boy_. Just a boy, not yet the fey and lovely leader he’s died for, will die for again.

 He doesn’t want to hurt this boy by telling him what they both know: it was wrong to use David. It was cruel to use David. That it wasn’t what a loyal friend or a well-trained one deserved, that it wasn’t the ending that he’d earned for that loyalty.

 Thomas swallows back what he means to say. Tears prickle at his eyes, and close his throat. He really and truly isn’t suited to be a gunslinger.

 “Well-met, Thomas,” Roland says softly. “Well-met, Jamie.”

 “Where are you _going_?” Thomas blurts, and Roland blinks. “Where are you going, Roland, and _why_ don’t you take me with you? It could be that I-”

 “I’m going to bury David, is all,” Roland says, then, thoughtfully, “and I am a man now, so I am going to buy the evening of a whore.”

 Thomas stares at him, completely boggled for a moment or two.

 “Neither of us cared to know that, Ro,” Jamie tells him quietly. Roland shrugs with the faint rustle of David’s feathers. The sound seems more obscene to Thomas than the thought of- of what Roland just said he was going to do. It seems very obscene. _David should have twenty more years, and we have only ten._

 Thomas’s skin crawls- Roland is speaking to him, plain and patient, and he can’t hear him over the sound of his voice. For a frightening- and frighteningly familiar- moment, Thomas thinks that the inside of his head must be scrambled terribly, for the path between his ears to so badly lose their way.

 Roland puts a hand on Thomas’s shoulder- for a moment his eyes and touch are lightning, chaining Thomas helplessly in place- and then he goes, apparently confident that Thomas heard and understood, or perhaps just knowing that Jamie would tell him if it was important.

 Thomas is aware of being led. He relaxes a fraction, though- it’s Jamie, is all, just his Jamie.

 They’re too big now for The Place- well, Thomas is, banging his head and shoulders whenever he tries to wiggle in- but they have other places, now. They pass through a hallway, past an unused classroom that gives Thomas an unhappy jolt, and move toward the shadowed reaches of the castle where only the toothy remains of stone foundations and wooden outbuildings stand. After a few more paces Jamie looks around, then takes Thomas’s hand in his as he leads him farther away from the bustle of the town.

  _Jamie_ , Thomas wants to call out, but his tongue ties in his mouth, and his lips barely part. His friend- his best friend, and loveliest of them- glances over his shoulder at him, smiling faintly, and Thomas’s weary heart sings a little.

 Their place in the trees is good. The ground is thick with soft, springy grass in some places, and lined with great smooth rocks big enough to lie on in others, and the shadows are gentle and green. Thomas is wracked with a sudden exhaustion, and he spreads his gangling and aching body over one of the rocks, burying his face against his folded arms.  

 Jamie’s hands- soft and small, clever and lovely- go to the back of his shoulder, smoothing over the place where Thomas’s arm threatens to dislodge itself when he moves it wrong. Thomas sighs without meaning to, and feels himself melt further into the rock.

 “Tomorrow everything will be different,” he mumbles, his mouth half-muffled by his arm.

 “It’s already different,” Jamie says, and Thomas hums in agreement. “Tommy?”

 There’s a question that Thomas can feel the shape of, and he turns up towards it, his heart racing. The sun is not quite setting through the glowing trees, and it’s a glow that paints the curve of Jamie’s face. Thomas has loved Jamie DeCurry for longer back than his memory can go, has never known anything more than he knows he loves Jamie, and the secret place in his heart- the place where all promises live, the place where _Yes_ lives, the place where the deepest part of Thomas himself lives- opens up, and he knows, as he has known, as he will know again: He is in love with Jamie, more and more each day.

 “Jay,” he breathes out reverently, and his love smiles at him from under a backlit corona of cloud-like hair a couple of shades lighter than the brown of his skin. “Oh, Jamie. Oh, dear.”

 Thomas sits up, reaches out, hesitates. Jamie takes his hand and gently presses his cheek into Thomas’s palm.

 Thomas sighs again, reaches out again, and this time doesn’t hesitate. He curls his arms around Jamie’s waist, pulling him close, and buries his face in Jamie’s shoulder.

 He does not say anything for several moments, just breathes in the smell of his best and loveliest friend, until his heart no longer races, until their breaths are in sync. Jamie’s hands are in his hair, letting it loose from the messy tail, running through and through it.

 “Jamie,” he says, and his voice sounds strange to his own ears, and he leans back just enough to look into Jamie’s eyes, to drown in the lines of his nose and his brow and the light dust of freckles high on his cheekbones and the smoothness of his jaw and-

 -Jamie’s right hand moves to Thomas’s neck, his thumb grazing the corner of his jaw where rangy stubble has started to show itself. The spell is not broken; Thomas learns that he can still speak, even while drowning.

 “I love you,” he says, and Jamie grins at him. “I love you with my entire, Jamie.”

 Jamie kisses him, his mouth soft, his hand soft, and it’s the sparkle of moonlight on a sea that Thomas never lives to see, it’s the sparkle of sunlight on a beach that Thomas has never heard of, it’s a high and lonely wind whistling against the foamy wave-tops. It strikes Thomas that he _knows_ these things, from some long-distant When, and the thought unsettles him, and he pulls back, panting, eyes roaming their small clearing.

 “Was my Mama, no, she told me of it,” he says faintly, squeezing his eyes shut. “Told stories. Captain Farris and the Tiger. The wind on the waves. The light.”

 “Will you tell me, Tommy?” Jamie asks softly- not just the stories, Thomas understands, but why he needs them, why the stories are here now. Thomas shudders, and meets Jamie’s mouth again.

 _Yes, soon. Yes, always. Yes, and yes, and yes_.  

 The light is very dim now. It’s not a good gauge of the time, with the trees blocking the sun’s path. Thomas’s bones hurt, his back against the stone, his ankles supporting his legs, his lap carrying Jamie. He doesn’t want to go back home- back to Gilead, back to the lights of the castle, the watching of eyes, the face of his father.

 “I love you,” Thomas says again, and Jamie smiles again.

 “Love you, Tommy,” he says, and Thomas closes his eyes. _Could stay here_ , he thinks blearily, could sleep under the sky, could wake up as someone else, aye, someone who may just exist to love his Jamie, someone who is no gunslinger, never will be, never was.

There is the smallest snap in the underbrush, and Thomas jolts upright, his shoulder and elbow screaming as he throws his hand out, before he realizes with sickening start that there’s no gun in that hand, and won’t be for some time. The whole world is stone, the light is stone, the trees are stone, and Thomas himself is stone, frozen in horror as Alain’s distant mindfeel questions him in growing alarm, what has happened, who he’s with, where the danger lies.

Thomas can’t lower his arm, though it trembles now, not until a small rabbit- not even big enough for a meal, say sorry- hops out from behind the tree where the gun-that-isn’t points. Thomas thinks he’ll vomit, knows he’s scaring Jamie and Alain, and tries to take a breath, finds that it escapes too soon in a hysterical giggle.

 _Only a small bunny, my dear, only a small bunny in the grass, love_ . Jamie gently pushes his arm down, and he rocks a little in place, hugging it to his chest, staring wildly at the rabbit as it sniffs curiously at the air. Thomas slides a little on the stone and gets to his feet, and the rabbit doesn’t move away, doesn’t hop back into the bushes. _Only seems he’s a braver bunny than daft old Tommy, ain’t he?_

 “Just a rabbit,” Thomas says, giving Jamie an imploring look. “Just a bunny rabbit, aye. Not a- not a man. No one here but us and the bunny rabbit, Jay?”

 Jamie’s lovely eyes won’t meet his. Thomas swallows thickly.

 “Must go now. Must go. Must- I must-” He can’t think what he must do, only that sick guilt crawls its fingers through him, though he can’t think of _why_. He tugs fitfully at his hair, before knotting it at the nape of his neck to keep it back. He opens his mouth and shuts it a few times, and then, a cold shiver rolling its way once down his back, he turns and marches back to his barracks alone.

He doesn’t even think to go to another’s room, he’s so jumbled. He hurts all up his back, though, and when dinner’s called he stays in his bed, not daring to move out from under his blanket, terrified of drifting off, sure of eyes swimming in and out of his vision in the shady walls, in the shadows, in the thin evening light.

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain are gone on their trip to Mejis not two full days when he and Jamie are called to the Great Hall from their studies. Jamie, it must be said, has to help Thomas with much of it, especially now that Alain’s far too far to feel Thomas’s confusion and offer his own well-meaning (if, sadly, often incorrect) advice on the matter of sums and sciences.

 Thomas can’t help but shy away somewhat from Sai Deschain, even though he knows he probably won’t be sent West by him this time- Thomas knows now, so he does, that asking or begging for help from him, from any of the gunslingers or bondsmen in Gilead, is at best a quick route to being sent away, or to the sanatorium, or death. And a dead Tommy can’t protect his Jamie, no he cannot.

 “I’m told the pair of you are ka-mates of Roland’s,” Steven says abruptly, and it strikes Thomas all at once, not as a never-memory but as a burst, perhaps, of rare insight. This man is cold. This man is impatient, not entirely like or unlike Roland, and Thomas can imagine what it must be like to love this man, and for a moment he pities Roland and his lady mother.

It also strikes Thomas that Steven Deschain _knows_ Jamie is Roland’s ka-mate, but has difficulty believing his son would willingly associate with him, that ka would link his talented and serious son with Thomas, with the last and least of their class.

Thomas has nothing to say. His father is standing near, and Master Vannay, as well. Steven taps his boot, staring into Thomas’s face, and after a while Col Whitman clears his throat.

“He doesn’t speak much or at all most days, Steven,” he admits, and Thomas sees Vannay frown slightly- he supposes his teachers must know him better than his father does, though.

“Hm.” There is much that Steven doesn’t say, loaded brick by brick into that single sound.

“We have a mission to ask of you,” he continues, shooting Thomas’s father and Vannay a glance. “My lady wife has requested an escort on her journey to Debaria, and we require both delicacy and silence in this task.”

Thomas perks up- he can’t help it, this is _new_ , and therefore interesting. He guesses that someone- perhaps Roland, if he was thinking clearly at the time, but possibly another- had noted that if Roland were in danger in Gilead for now, that any of Roland’s friends might be, too. And Roland’s lady mother seems to be a nice lady, so she does.

“It will not be overlong of a journey, and you will be returning home without her,” Steven says. “Should expect you home within a month.”

Thomas nods faintly- he wonders if this will change anything. Doesn’t Roland’s mother die soon after her return from the Abbey there? It feels like an urgent detail, but if she doesn’t die on the journey itself or while she’s at the Abbey, why, surely nothing bad will happen to her, at the least while he’s near. He finds himself deeply glad to have something to take him out of the castle, and it might be nice to get to know Gabrielle Deschain.

He thinks he catches a glimpse of Steven turning to give Vannay and his father a sharp word- oh, dear, he missed something again, didn’t he?- before Jamie takes his arm and leads him out, back to the barracks so they can hurriedly gather their things. There isn’t much they can take- only one or two changes of clothes that wear hard, though Jamie can fit more of his own things into his purse. Thomas and Jamie don’t have pictures of their own mothers to bring with them, though Thomas does have a few interesting river-rocks and a diagram of a tattooed tiger, so he brings those.

They are not given guns, but Jamie is given a fresh sheaf of bolts for his bah. Thomas offers no quarrel when he is left to make do with his small, well-made knife- he thinks too readily of the rabbit in the forest clearing, and what might have happened if he’d had a weapon in hand.

They leave at almost-dawn, the sun not quite crawled up from its seat on the horizon, and though something strikes Thomas very ill about it, he can’t think of a good reason why. He and Jamie are silent, plodding on mules flanking the good lady’s handsome pony, for roughly an hour or so, and then Thomas can no longer take it.

“There’s a tree up ahead that looks exactly like Master Vannay’s beard,” he announces, and his companions shoot him glances- Jamie mildly curious, Sai Gabrielle startled and confused. “If his beard grew upside-down, though.”

“So it does,” Roland’s mother says finally, and Thomas grins at her. “Are you Thomas?”

“Ha! Yes, lady, that’s me, Thomas,” he chortles, thinking of the first time he met Roland as a child. He glances over, expecting that she has some anecdote, perhaps, something that Roland’s mentioned to her, but instead she offers him a sadly beautiful smile, her mouth a red slash in her face.

“I was dear friends with your mother,” she says, and something slow and cold crawls up Thomas’s back. “Dear Verise.”

“Ah?” Thomas would be no good even if he had a gun. The world around him is a flat, blue and white plate. “I didn’t… I didn’t know you know my mother, sai.”

“Verise of the Rising Waves,” she says softly. “How could I not? For am I not Gabrielle Of The Waters?”

Thomas did not know that. The tree that looks like Vannay’s beard is no closer than it was when he first saw it, it seems.

“Are-” A worrying, dreadful thought occurs to him. “Are you kin, sai?”

“Oh- no,” she says, sounding surprised that he’d ask. “Our titles were awarded as teens, close to the ages you boys are now. Our lands were joined by a river crossing, and there were fairs and festivals aplenty for us to meet. I knew Verise from our childhoods, and I was so happy when she came to the castle to be married…”

She trails off. Thomas can’t imagine his mother as a girl his age. He can’t imagine her at all, come to think of it.

“She was a lovely woman,” she muses, and Thomas’s hands tighten on the mule’s bridle, until a couple of his joints pop quietly. “She was always so happy on a ship of her own.”

“Well,” he says faintly, unable to look at Roland’s lady mother right now. “I’m- I’m glad she’s back in the place where she was happy, then.”

The silence is heavy. Even the sound of the mules is muted to nothing, though, so possibly Thomas is missing quite a bit. When he remembers to look up, the tree that looks so much like Vannay’s beard is gone, aye, and is too far behind them to see, as well.

Thomas is afraid to ask, and by the time they stop to make camp, he no longer feels the need to.

Lady Gabrielle’s tent is a small but lovely thing, and Thomas and Jamie raise it quickly enough while she sits on her pony in silent thought. They carry some of her things inside the door, and Thomas builds a fire- he’s always been good at that, he thinks mildly. Finding good firewood and kindling, building a simple stone circle so they could leave it burning in the night. Silly campside jobs, things anybody could do, things you didn’t need a gun for.

They make a weak pot of tea and split it three ways, eating a cold dinner in companionable silence- Jamie sneaking glances at Thomas every so often, and Thomas at him in return. The lands are dangerous everywhere, and they’ll have to take watches, but they’re fifteen years old apiece, and they’re mostly thinking of the fact that they’re really quite alone, out here in the traveling roads.

“I shall retire to my tent now,” Gabrielle says, taking her mug of tea with her.

“Sleep well and well, lady-sai,” Thomas says cheerfully, giving her a bit of a wave as he tears into a chunk of cured meat. Once she’s backed into her tent and shut the flap, Jamie gets up and sits next to him, their legs touching.

“I can take first watch,” Thomas says quietly, and Jamie shakes his head. “Why, shouldn’t I, though?”

Jamie makes a brief handsign at him in the firelight- _Not-sleepy._

“Neither’m I,” Thomas mutters. He gulps his tea quickly, the hot liquid burning his tongue slightly on its way down. “Shall be awake all night, me. I don’t feel right.”

Jamie puts a concerned hand on Thomas’s knee. Thomas gives him a weak smile.

“Nothing bad, I think. Not sick. And nothing like-” He looks around, though there’s no one nearby, no. “Nothing like this has ever happened, I think. May just be that I don’t know what to expect.”

He picks up Jamie’s hand, gives it a swift kiss on the knuckles, a thrill fluttering in his heart, and they both grin bashfully at one another.

 He stands, brushing off the seat of his pants. “Am going to fetch a bit more wood, then. Maybe I-”

He loses the rest of his words, for Gabrielle is standing at the flap of her tent, gazing evenly at him, and he doesn’t know for how long.

“Would you come to me a moment, Thomas? I have something to ask you,” she says, and he nods nervously, making his way over to her tent. She starts to motion him in, then smiles faintly. “I don’t bite, young man.”

“Yes, lady,” Thomas says warily, and she holds aside the tent flap. He doesn’t shoot an imploring look over his shoulder at Jamie, but only because he’s afraid that if he whips his head round he might hit her in the face with the brim of his nice hat.

“You may sit if you want,” she says lightly, but there’s only the small rolled cot to sit on, and he’d rather not. She brushes past him, and sits down on one side of it, her slippered feet resting on the small woven rug. “Do you know where we’re going, Thomas?”

“Aye, lady, to Debaria,” he says, then, because she’s nice, because she knew his mother once, “and not supposed to know, I think, that we’re going to the Abbey. Our Lady of the Rose, with the white tents and the flowers.”

“You speak true, Thomas,” she says, blinking her big, dark eyes at him. Her hair is the dark almost-brown Roland’s is, he thinks faintly, and her mouth smaller, perhaps, but shaped the same, aye. And something in her is lovely and fey, it’s true, but- distressingly- she’s not Roland, nor does she smile the way he does. Her smile disquiets him, now. “Gossip travels fast, it seems.”

 “Sometimes,” he says, worrying the trim of his vest. “I don’t know much else what’s in Debaria, Lady-sai, t’was an assumption.”

“As you say, young Thomas,” she says, tilting her head. “Why do you wear your hat? Tis night, the sun’s long gone.”

“S’nice hat,” he mumbles, taking it off and holding it to his chest like a shield. She laughs suddenly, sounding surprised by the sound.

 “Why, you’re just like your mother, Thomas,” she says, and at his questioning look she clarifies, “she often wore her hair like that, a big topknot at her crown.”

“Aye, is that so?” he asks, blinking and forgetting to be worried in his fascination. “I don’t remember her hair.”

“What _do_ you remember of her?” she inquires, and he swallows. It’s not scary, he decides, just odd. He’s never had much to do with Roland’s mother before.

“I remember she told me stories,” he says in a small voice, and she nods encouragingly. “I remember her stories very well, lady. And she sang me to my naps, she did, though I remember the songs less. I remember-” His voice catches on the word, and he blushes. “I remember the smell of her, though not what words would say it was. I’ll know it again when I smell it, though.”

“Do you say so?” she asks, tilting her head at him. “Could just be the smell of a woman, Thomas. I’d take it you haven’t yet… known any women or girls your age, then?”

“I don’t know,” he says, holding his hatbrim so tight it starts to roll in his hands. “Don’t know anything about women, lady sai.” He knows Alain’s sisters, but they’re just sisters, not- not women. He’s never smelled them. He can’t imagine why she’s asking him this, and his unease is a knife in his gut. He wants to go back outside, breathe the clean night air, be beside Jamie in the firelight. He tries to tell himself again that it’s not scary, just odd.

“That seems true enough,” she says, and the knife twists. “Why don’t you come a little closer, Thomas? Tis strange to speak to someone from across a room.”

“I don’t want to be rude, is all,” he mumbles, and she laughs.

“Ruder to ignore the request of a lady, don’t you think, Thomas?” He shoots her a panicked look, and she pats the cot next to her. “Sit. Why don’t you tell me the stories she told you?”

He swallows, his throat gone dry, and sits stiffly at her side. “I don’t know all the words, lady. Captain Farris and the Tiger is my favorite.”

“O, brave wanderer Farris, who loved his enemy, yea, and earned his love in return,” she quotes softly at him. “It’s a common tale from our childhoods. It was her favorite, too.”

“What else does she like?” he asks timidly, despite himself, and she casts another smile at him.

“She loved sailing, as you can imagine, I think. She loved the feeling of the wind in her free hair, and the way it had to be brushed and untangled after. She loved having her hair brushed, and it was very long, and brown, like yours.” He chews on his lip- he loves to have his hair brushed, too, and when Jamie plays with it. He’d never thought of it being something his Mama loves. “How long is your hair, Thomas?”

“Oh- I don’t know,” he says, blinking. “I’ve not measured it, lady.”

 “Let me see,” she commands, and when he blinks at her again, she leans forward. “Take your hair down, Thomas, so I may see it.”

His hands almost refuse to unfurl themselves, even after he tries to let go of his hat they stay in clumsy, reddening claws. They shake as he reaches up and lets his hair out of the topknot that Jamie’d given him this morning, and they feel very weak when he tries to clutch onto his hat again.

Roland’s mother lets out a sound like an appreciative sigh, like the sound Jamie made, kissing him under the trees, and Thomas wants to leave, he does.

“Your mother was a year younger than I was,” she says softly, running her hands through his hair, pulling it back to admire it. “Four times a year we met at the river crossing fairgrounds, until the year I came here to marry Steven. I was sixteen, did you know that? Only a little older than you are now.”

 “Yes, lady,” he whispers, trying to fight the tremble in his voice.

 “And she was headstrong. She had to be, to command a ship, and she came here, and Colton was just another man of Gilead, just like Steven,” she says, and Thomas is aware that his eyes are watering, and is trying desperately not to let it show. “She was very beautiful, in her way. You take after her, did you know? Only not your nose, that came of your father.”

“Aye, lady, so they say,” he says hoarsely. Her fingertips scratch softly against his scalp, down the back of his head and to the nape of his neck, and now he _can’t_ stop the tears from rolling in fat streaks down his nose, or from falling off the tip of it.

“But beautiful she was. She hadn’t wanted a husband, but she’d wanted a child, and she came a year after I did, you see, and it was a little joke between us, that eventually she’d had you before I could have my Roland. Always very eager, she was. Are you like her in that way, too, Thomas?” She doesn’t wait for a response, tugging his hair back, running it through her hands. “She was always a very eager woman. She’d even been eager to come all this way, even though Gilead is a hundred wheels inland. She would have loved to go back one day, but-”

 “ _She did go back_ ,” Thomas says, and he thinks he might be shouting, but he can’t seem to get a handle on it. “She went back home, aye, she went home to be happy on the sea, so she did!”

 Gabrielle’s hands still. “Oh, Thomas- I didn’t mean to make you cry so, I only-”

Thomas stands, breathing hard. He rattles off an apology and a goodnight, but he really must be taking that watch now.

He doesn’t know what Jamie sees on him when he rushes out of the tent, shoulders hunched under his wild hair, face shining-wet with tears.

“If you love me you’ll go to sleep,” he says raggedly. “Am taking watch now. Good night.”

Jamie’s eyes are wide and dark, but he gently touches Thomas’s knuckles before going and laying down very carefully on his bedroll.

He doesn’t wake Jamie for second watch, because he’s poor at keeping time, so he is. He paces the camp for some hours, and when Jamie wakes up on his own, it’s almost dawn, the sky that worrisome gray-blue. Jamie has to rub his hands for some minutes before the feeling comes back- somehow, he realizes, he’d forgotten to stop clinging onto his hat so tight.

He tries to apologize again, when Roland’s mother steps out of her tent, but she only waves him off with a small, red smile.

“Oh, Thomas, it is no sin for a son to love his mother,” she says, and goes and sits on her pony. Thomas spends the rest of their second day in a daze- and, if he’s honest, most of the third, as well.

Every time he thinks of Roland he wants to burst into tears. Only when he’s lying on his bedroll, arm against his mouth to muffle the sound, does he let himself.

Debaria itself is a green land, not unlike the outerlands of Gilead. Possibly, he reckons, because they’re bordered, just so. He wonders if it’s green like this on the other end. It’s all vaguely lovely, and he feels sure he’d enjoy it more if he were feeling quite up to it.

Lady Gabrielle uses some money to buy them a pair of rooms for the night in the first town they reach, and in deference to the fact that they’re supposedly acting as her escorts, she pays the barkeep a little more to make sure they’re next to one another.

Their room is small but very clean, with a flat, thin rug in the middle of two narrow beds. It’s very much like the barracks, Thomas thinks, aye. There’s even a little pitcher of water and a washbin, standing along a piece of metal that’s been polished high enough to shine back their faces at them. It’s rather nice, after some number of nights out in the open. Thomas makes to tell Jamie this, and- like every time he’s tried to speak over the past few days since that first night- the words die on his tongue before he can open his mouth.

He washes his face and hands thoroughly, and that seems to help, some. He gingerly prods the corner of one of the cotlike beds with the fingers of his right hand, more out of curiosity than anything else. It is certainly a bed, made out of whatever beds are made from.

There is a knock on the door and he startles badly, turning to look, and it’s Jamie that opens it a crack, for he’s closer.

“Would you boys like me to send supper up for you?” she asks, and before Jamie can turn fully to look at him he blurts out a frantic _No_. Gabrielle blinks, and Thomas blushes furiously.

“No, but thank you, lady-sai,” he mumbles, ducking his head. “M’not hungry, no.”

“And you, young Jamie?” she asks, and he gestures at Thomas and shakes his head. “Very well, boys. I’ll see you in the morning.” A faint smile crosses her face. “Sleep well and well.”

Jamie shuts the door firmly, and gives Thomas a searching look, laden with so many questions that Thomas can’t see them all. He makes a handsign- _Sleepy?_

“No,” Thomas whispers. He’s shaking, though. “Mayhap.”

_Bed._

“Yes, Jamie,” he sighs, stripping off his vest and boots first, then his jeans. He shakes them out a bit, and a small pile of road-dust falls onto the rug. “Ah, cry pardon, Jay.”

Jamie shakes his head. _Don’t fret over it_.

“Mm,” Thomas frets, folding them gently onto one of the beds. He moves to scratch his chest through his shirt and there is suddenly a change: Jamie goes, seemingly without warning, from the door to Thomas’s side, and he startles slightly when he realizes. His chest is a little sore, under the spot where he’d been itchy just a moment ago, and Jamie’s hand is gently holding his hand still. It occurs very slowly to him that he might have scratched himself too long or too hard, for it stings when his shirt brushes against his skin there.

“Must look very a fool, in my shirt and socks,” he mumbles, and Jamie shakes his head, points at the other bed. “Good idea.”

He does mean to take off his shirt and socks, too, but he flops onto the bed before he can, and then it would be too hard to get back up. The travelling-knot at the base of his back is already wailing at the thought of moving too much. He doesn’t think he can sleep, though, and watches Jamie undress for bed with half-closed eyes, thoughts tumbling and jumbling past one another until none of them makes any sense, even for a moment.

Jamie climbs in with him, pulling the thin blanket over them, and lays his head on Thomas’s chest, over his heart. After a moment he finds one of Thomas’s hands and squeezes.

“Tommy?” he asks softly, carefully. “What did she do?”

“I-” Thomas tries, but tears are leaking out of his eyes, and his voice shakes. “I don’t- she didn’t? She didn’t do anything, I don’t- I don’t know why I- why-”

He can’t explain it, can’t explain the feeling of badness, of wrongness, of the sharp fear when she looked at him, touched his hair, spoke to him. He cries, it seems, _endlessly_ , clinging to Jamie as though in a storm. A relentless worming guilt eats through him at the thought of upsetting Jamie, and he cries more, even as Jamie’s soft and perfect hands cup his face, even as Jamie kisses his brow.

“I don’t want to be here anymore, I don’t,” Thomas mumbles into Jamie’s neck. “I want- I want-”

He can’t even think of what it is he does want. Little wonder Roland never takes him to Mejis.

Sleep is a thin and fitful thing, and he rises later than he normally would, and feels bleary and weak when he does. It is two more days of awkward silence before they catch sight of the Abbey, gleaming white over a field of white tents and red roses, and Thomas’s heart catches in his throat.

 _It’s half over now_ , he thinks, and he knows that Roland and Cuthbert and Alain have not even reached their destination yet.

“It’s very lovely,” Roland’s mother says, and there is no more on the subject until they arrive at the gates. The sister there is all in white, and she holds up a hand at the sight of Thomas and Jamie.

“No men are permitted past these gates, save for the Friar and for the faithful,” she says, and Thomas speaks before he can thank her and take her leave and go back, go homewards, away from all this.

“Why not, Sister-sai?” he asks, and she gives him an imperious look.

“The women of this Abbey have come here to escape the lustful eyes of your sex,” she says frankly, and Thomas doesn’t have time to interpret this before Gabrielle raises her own hand.

“There is no danger of _that_ from these boys, Sister,” she says, and Thomas feels very brittle indeed when the sister looks at him once more.

“Is that true, boychild?” she asks, and Thomas wonders mildly why that is, why he went from a man to a child in the space of one sentence.

“Goodness, I suppose it is,” he says, his mouth feeling thick around the words. “Have never put lustful eyes on someone yet. I intend not to harass any ladies of your Abbey, neither.”

“Hm,” the sister says doubtfully. “We will bring you to the Big Sister, and let her decide, then.”

“Oh, but-” Thomas is led inside before he can rightly utter, _we really don’t want to go inside, though_.

Thomas and Jamie tie their mules to a post, glumly following Gabrielle and the white-clad nun through a courtyard. They do stand out, he has to admit- the only two men in the entire area around them, the only two people wearing anything other than white, the only two people wearing big, heavy boots and belts that make creaking and clomping noises as they walk among these swift and quiet ladies. Many of the ladies are very old; a few are Gabrielle’s age. Thomas puts his hands in his pockets, thinking.

“Sister-sai,” he says suddenly. “Wouldn’t it be better to just put everybody with them lustful eyes inside a place somewhere instead of locking up all these old ladies?”

“What?” she snaps. Gabrielle is goggling at him from behind her back, and on her other side he can see Jamie wince slightly.

“Well, coz surely those lusty eyes is a hazard to everybody, not just the people in here?” he clarifies, and she gives him an icy look.

“The book says not to scorn the simplicity of children and the child-minded, boy, but this is an impertinence too far.” She frowns sternly, shaking her head under the great winged wimple.

“Ah. Cry pardon, Sister, I was only wonderin’.” He has no idea what the great draw is, and frankly is already thinking of putting this place behind them. Thomas sort of wonders- it really only took a week to get here, and therefore should only take a week to get back. Why did Sai Deschain tell them a month, then? If no one’s expecting them back for two more weeks than it takes for them to make the trip, then surely no one will be quarrelsome if they take a detour, surely, or camp somewhere a little more scenic for an extra night or two.

“Lady Deschain, you will enter the hall of the penitent there,” the Sister says, and Gabrielle murmurs something quiet and goes quickly to one side, and then they start moving again. The Sister glances over at Thomas as she glides around. “I know your face, boy.”

“Is it the nose? That’d be my father’s doin’-” Thomas starts amiably, but she scoffs at him.

“No. Your lady mother was sent here, as a young bride,” she says, and Thomas almost trips. “It is customary for most ladies of the seaside Baronies, for their ways are more sinful than those of the inlands.” She gives him a sharp look, apparently displeased about his stumble.

“This is no place for horseplay, boy. Especially now, with our late Prioress Everlynne so recently taken from us.”

“No, sai. I mean, yes, sai,” he says, clutching at his shirt. Did he know that? Did he ever know that? He thinks not, because his father dislikes speaking of her, but- “How does being in this place make one less sinful, Sister?”

“It is a place of reflection and penitence. It is a place of dedication, both of body and of spirit.” The sister’s face softens slightly. “It is here that our lives may be spent in contemplation of the holy mysteries of the workings of the world.”

“Oh,” Thomas says politely. “Your whole lives, sai?”

“Well, yes, boy.” She pauses, glancing at him again. “It is also a place of pilgrimage, for the faithful, and a place of correction, for those who do not follow the paths ka has laid for them. People like Lady Deschain, or your lady mother.”

“Ah,” Thomas says uncomfortably. “Not a pilgrim, was she?”

A thin smile, and fading patience. “No, not she. Her travels took her far and far from any known road, indeed.”

The thought is a nice one, he thinks faintly. He enjoys the idea of his mother seeing the world, what there is left of it.

The sister turns, and Jamie makes a face at Thomas from behind her back. Thomas makes a face back.

The Big Sister, Abbess of the Convent, takes them into her office, after a few short words with the one who’d walked them in. Thomas doesn’t think much of the room, at first, though he does notice that there’s a large glass window in back of her broad desk.

“It is not often a pair of apprentices make the journey with one of the ladies of Gilead,” she says finally, looking at them through a pair of roughly shaped spectacles. “Though not unheard-of, that we receive one or two every decade or so.”

Thomas and Jamie exchange glances. Bert or Alain would know something good to say- even Roland, for he can be very polite when he wants to be- but Thomas and Jamie fidget uncomfortably.

“These times are a trial,” she says, “and the natural order of things has begun to creep. So rare that men and women can sire healthy children as it is, and to squander that gift by seeking carnal pleasures- by hand or by the flesh of one not bound by ka to your spirit- is a transgression against the natural order itself.”

Thomas is trying very hard to understand her, but the sun is starting to set, and the light is catching in the glass of the window, and he can see it’s all made of smaller pieces of glass, and they’re a brilliant gold color in this light, and the light is revealing the design most prettily.

“Aye, that sounds bad,” he says cautiously, watching the window with a growing sense of fascination and- familiarity? He can’t be certain, just yet, but his hand moves idly to rest over his heart as he thinks.

“It is a sin against the highest order of creation,” she says sharply. “Man cannot be bound by ka to another man, nor woman to woman-”

“Except for if they’re ka-tet, aye,” Thomas nods agreeably, watching hungrily as the light reveals more of the pattern. He thinks they’re of a radiance, like a sun, like many suns, like all suns-

“We speak not of ka-tet, here, but of the joinders of an-tet, that of a man and woman to make new children,” she says, and he supposes she would know, but he also knows that Cort and Master Vannay say differently about ka, and about what being joined an-tet means, that only one of its various intentions can refer to the physical connection two parents make. He opens his mouth to speak and stops, momentarily entranced.

The window is a rose- a huge and gorgeous rose- a radiant rose, brilliant and shining and _familiar_ and red-pink on gold and Thomas’s hand flattens over his heart.

 She is still speaking. He has no idea what she’s saying.

It’s the rose of his tattoo, the one he always gets over his heart, the one he will get over his heart, only-

 -only he _is_ sure, isn’t he, that he draws it from memory every time? He gets the tattoo because he likes it, because it’s nice, because he knows he always gets it. He has never been to Debaria. He knows he has never been to Debaria, aye, for he would remember the trip, remember the convent, remember this lovely rose-glass here.

Thomas’s neck crawls with sweat. How could he remember the rose-glass enough to draw it down and give it to the tattooist? He’s never been to Debaria. Not in any of the Whens he can remember, not in any of the memories-that-wasn’t.

It feels very, very hot in the room, but his hands feel very, very cold. Where did the tattoo come from, if not from this window, if not from this very room? He has never been to Debaria. He has _never_ been to Debaria. He has never visited Debaria.

He.

Doesn’t remember.

Visiting Debaria.

Thomas sways in his seat, his vision swimming. He can remember very far back, aye, not sure how many Whens, but he can remember everything that happened to him up through all of the fourteens he’s been and much of what happens after the age he is now, and this glass will be destroyed, he knows, Debaria is razed to the ground by the time he’s seventeen, and he never gets a chance to leave Gilead after Roland comes home pink-sick, not until the Fall. He knows he has never seen this window after the Fall.

He can’t remember having ever been to Debaria.

It dawns on him, as slowly as the setting sun is sinking now, that he must have seen it in such a long-ago When that whatever it is of him that comes back- whatever it is of him that Remembers- can no longer keep it, the memories of that time and visit buried and gone in the mists.

It dawns on him that it must be so much more than a hundred Whens. It dawns on him that it must be more than a thousand, more than a thousand thousand, so many that he can’t conceive of a number for it. It dawns on him that he’s been trying to fix the world- and failing- and trying again- and failing again, and forgetting, and trying, and failing, and forgetting, and trying, and failing, and-

“Young man?” the Big Sister says, and he comes to with a strangled sob, the room dim and gold and red. Tears are streaming down his face; he wonders where he gets all this water from, that he should weep it up so readily on this journey. He wonders what great and terrible sin he’s committed to be trapped so on this wheel, and he doesn’t need to wonder long before examples start hurtling toward the front of his mind.

Jamie is staring at him, wide-eyed- frightened- and he sobs again, unable to help it, seeing the image in the eye of his mind, Jamie’s eyes going wide with startled fright before a bullet turns his face all to a cloud of gristle and bone.

He feels the tickle of Jamie’s _khef_ \- like a hand brushing across his bony knuckles- and he pleads desperately for forgiveness.

“Young man,” the Big Sister says again, and hope gutters like a candle in a high wind.

“Sister-lady,” he gasps, gazing up at her. “This is a place for making clean, for penance, for- for making- for-”

His tongue ties, but she seems to understand his meaning, her eyes bright behind her spectacles.

“Have you sinned, boy?” she asks seriously. “Do you wish to repent of that sin?”

“ _Yes_ ,” he says, his voice breaking. “Yes.”

She regards him momentarily, then nods stiffly. “You two may stay one night in the courtyard tents. You may confess your sins to the Friar in his chapel, and if he decrees it appropriate, you may stay longer.”

 _We don’t even want to stay_ , Jamie nearly prickles at his side.

“Thank you,” Thomas says, and at her bid they stand.

“You may go to the tent, if you have no need of salvation,” she tells Jamie, and Thomas thinks to pass his hat to Jamie, just so he doesn’t forget it himself. Turning to Thomas, she almost-smiles, but it doesn’t go far on a face like hers. “The office of the Friar is downstairs, in the sub-basement. It is not a place of beauty or idle gazing, but a serious place. Do not go if you are not prepared to take it seriously.”

He nods. He is prepared to do anything, he thinks, if only he could put an end to all this.

Thomas scrubs at his face when he sees her sit back down behind her desk. “You don't go with me, sai?”

“No,” she says, and she sounds very gentle now. “The contemplation of one's sins is a task for solitude.”

He nods mutely.

It is not so great a distance to the place in the hallway that branches off to a short flight of stairs, leading down to a dark and simple door; not enough time to regret coming, not enough time to lose his nerve and run to Jamie, either. His booted foot hovers over the first step- unsure, for a moment, that he should take it- and he squashes down that feeling with a lurch of horror. Maybe this different thing is the thing he needed to do, to fix things. Maybe he should have come here long ago.

A cold and settling dread comes over him as he takes those few steps down. What if he can never _be_ forgiven?

But the answer comes at once: then he will keep trying, so he will. It is not in his nature to leave his lovely friends to the same and dreadful fate.

He opens the door to a dark and stuffy room. The only windows are very high and small, at the level where the ground is, and he wonders how the Friar is ever to see things in here, when he notices row upon row of candles- some fat and squat, some thin and long, some lumpy and misshapen with use, some fresh with still-white wicks.

“Close the door,” the Friar says, and Thomas obeys. There is a desk and a chair along one side, smaller than the Big Sister’s, and a number of shining brass things on it- he can’t see them well, in the very dim light of the room, but some appear to be like jars or bottles, some appear to be curiously shaped weights like he’s seen at markets- even a big round thing on a stand, which Thomas can’t imagine the purpose of. “Unarm yourself, if you have brought weapons into this house of peace.”

“Oh, no, sai, I left my knife with the mule,” Thomas volunteers, then, uncertainty striking him as he sees the pallid face of the Friar swimming over the matte black of his priestly robes, “is- is this the place, sai, for- for penance, to confess sins?”

“Oh, yes, it surely is,” the Friar says, and his voice strikes Thomas as familiar, very familiar. He finds himself wishing he had his guns, and remembers the moment in the clearing, with the rabbit and the gun-that-wasn’t, and thinks, in a final moment of clarity: am still a gunslinger without my guns. The guns are in my mind. The guns are in me.

The Friar strikes a long match on the wall. “Kneel, then, and let the candles cast light upon your sins.”

Thomas’s knees hit the stone floor with a jolt of pain that races up to his hips, a startled gasp escaping his lips as the tip of the match lights the first candle. He gazes up at the Friar, at the faint flicker of light against his eyes, and becomes aware that the candle has a smell- not a bad smell, no, just unusual, a smell very like pork fat on the fry, and something else, something with a very faint spice to it. A feeling of pressure grows behind his eyes, and his mouth waters slightly.

“Well?” the Friar prompts, and Thomas is rattled out of his reverie by the sound of his voice. In the eye of his mind, he sees Colton Whitman, towering overhead.

“I- I have sinned,” Thomas says thickly. “I… I have sinned in thought, sai, for I-” He swallows harshly. “For I hate my father, sai.”

“Indeed, a great sin for any who seeks to remember his father’s face.” But the Friar doesn’t sound angry or disappointed. He mostly just sounds amused. Something in Thomas is frightened by this, and something in Thomas is relieved, aye, as relieved as he feels when he sees- when he will see- when he has seen Gilead aflame.

The still-lit match moves, light dancing off the brass instruments on the Friar’s desk. Thomas’s eye follows the flame as it meets the second candle. The smell grows stronger, and now Thomas has to swallow back his growing hunger, and tells his body to settle, to stop feeling hungry. His body- never an obedient thing, alas- does not stop. Thomas thinks of the food in his and Jamie’s packs, and thinks of eating it, the two of them quiet and happy and under the stars. He thinks of how they never really get to do that- a quiet and happy meal together- unless they’re outside of Gilead’s walls, away from her.

The pressure behind his eyes grows until he has to blink, sure that his eyes will pop out any moment.

“I…”  Thomas blinks again. The smell of spice from the candle’s smoke is also stronger. “I have sinned again, aye, in thought again, for Gilead, too, I do not love.”

There is a low, tittering laugh. “What a shameful trait, in one called to serve her. How could you call yourself a gunslinger if you do not love that which you serve?”

Thomas inhales shakily, tears springing to his eyes. The smell of spiced smoke crawls up into his sinuses, and he feels weak.

_on his knees, hands clasped before him, pleading with his teachers, for anyone to believe him, knowing that there was only one adult he ever knew who would have, aye, and he even knows her name, but not what has become of her, only that she’s gone_

The match is still-lit, but low now. The Friar moves it again, lighting a slim and shapely candle, before tossing the spent match aside.

“I have sinned,” Thomas says heavily. His vision is blotchy- it seems to be made of patches of light and dark now, the shapes in the room growing less distinct in the increased light, not more. “I have forgotten the face of my mother.”

The Friar picks up the candle, uses it to light another.

_the hurt look in Roland’s eyes as he sighs in disappointment, grief etched through every line of his young face_

“I have sinned,” Roland’s face very pale, behind a gun that is not shaking, something hot and aching in his chest, the smell of blood, “I have sinned against my dinh.”

Another candle. Thomas can feel himself trembling.

_pulling the barrel from his mouth, my word, i really and truly jammed that in there_

“I have sinned, I have dishonored my father’s guns.”

_tommy, no! alain shrieks, the left side of his face disappearing, jamie falling jerking and headless to the ground, cuthbert with red roses on his best new shirt_

Another candle.

“I have sinned, I have turned my guns on my ka-tet.” Tears roll hot down Thomas’s face. He knows he is rocking slightly in place only because the screaming in his knees has changed.

Another candle. Thomas moans softly at the sight of it, and his chest hurts, and he can’t think for all the smoke.

_a man lying gut-shot on the battlefield, left to be trampled to death, left to bleed out into the muddy grass_

“I have sinned, I have murdered dishonorably,” he gasps, heat in his head and gut.

Another candle.

“I have- I have-” A thousand thousand times the twin thunder of guns in the night, a thousand thousand times Alain already cold by the time they bring him back.

Another candle, before Thomas can unjumble his words and thoughts.

“I- I have sinned-” A thousand thousand times Roland uses an innocent hawk to its death as payment for its loyalty, a thousand thousand times Roland is sent away and comes back pink-sick, a thousand thousand times Gabrielle Deschain- last and as he knows it only friend his mother has- is murdered by her son’s hands.

An alien heat in his gut, his breath catching ragged in his chest. He is aware that he is growing hard, in the same distant way that he knows that his clumsy fists are beating against the front of his thighs in a failed attempt to will it away. His body feels like it’s on fire. It’s so hot in the room, and the Friar lights another candle, and the heat increases.

“Ah… sinned, ah-” Cuthbert lying in the grass, Cuthbert lying on the floor of Cort’s cottage, Cuthbert with his brains splattered out by the handle of an ax, Cuthbert with a bullet tearing its way into his kidney and out through his gut, Cuthbert catching an arrow in his eye, look Bertie, we match, don't you see?

There is a sound of laughter. Thomas has to bite down on his own tongue, filling his mouth with blood, just to be sure that it’s not coming from himself. The taste of it sets his mouth to watering again, and his stomach lurches even as he swallows it back with some wild and desperate thirst.

Another candle. It’s so bright, so bright, so hot and so bright.

“Jay- oh Jamie, I-” Thomas slurs, and Jamie dies, over and over and over again, his lovely wind-tossed sea, and Thomas knows he is crying, just as he knows he’s burning alive, just as he knows that he will die and die and die again, forever, unending.

Another candle ablaze, a soft utterance, _let there be light_.

“Sssin,” Thomas wails, his hot, dry hands at his hot, dry face now, smearing the tracks of his tears against his cheeks. “Sin, I fail them, I fail, I forget, I fail, I-”

“You _kill_ them with your failure, Tommy-boy,” the Friar says, and Thomas sobs desperately into his hands, and the smallest part of him- the part of him that is a gun- whispers back, wonders how he knows Thomas’s name. “As another Tommy-boy once said, M-O-O-N, that spells murderer.”

Another laugh, but mercifully- if such a thing as mercy can even exist now- no more candles, no more confessions. The Friar is very close now, and his black robes are heavy with the spiced and oily smell of the candles, aye, but also a sweet and sickly smell that Thomas only knows from the memories-that-wasn’t as the odor of a long, dry rot.

Ice-cold hands land on the sides of his neck, so cold he can’t breathe, and open his shirt, frozen lightning through him as broad thumbs dash roughly over his nipples, another sickening lurch in his stomach.

“That looks like it hurts,” the Friar says laughingly, and a foot in a-

- _heavy boot stomps down, crushing_ -

-supple leather shoe presses gently against the stone-hard thing between Thomas’s legs, and he sobs again, his face cradled in those icy hands. “Rise up, Tommy-boy, it’s been a while since I’ve had you like this.”

He tries but cannot, his knees numb from kneeling against the stone floor, and an icy pair of hands clamps down hard under his armpits, and he is yanked to his feet. It takes a few false starts before he can make his legs support his weight again.

He is aware that his mouth is hanging open, that his chin is slick with blood and drool. He can’t seem to remember how to close it.

“You simply have to understand,” the Friar says, leading him to the desk, backing him against it until he’s sitting on its surface, ice cold hands at his hips, ice cold hands holding him in place. “This is always very entertaining, but surely you know you’re much too wicked to change anything, don’t you? You’re drenched with sin, Tommy-boy, you’re _quaking_ with it.”

An ice-cold mouth at his throat, sucking harshly at the skin there. An ice-cold hand on his wrist, moving his hand to his lap, and Thomas moves with frantic obedience, unbuttoning the work jeans he’s worn since he started out on this journey. Another low, tittering laugh, as they’re peeled off of him, as ice-cold hands move to his bare knees, as they push his legs apart, as they wrap around him and pull a shuddering moan out of him.

“This is you at your best,” the Friar says in a confiding, mocking tone. Thomas’s head rolls back on his shoulders, his lungs burning with the smoke of the candles.

“You know why you never win, don’t you, o lost and lonely one?” the Friar asks, and the part of Thomas that is a gun opens his eyes and looks at him, even as the ice-cold hands move faster, even as his breath turns to harsh, ragged pants.

“It is because you weren’t made to resist, Thomas,” the Friar purrs, his voice so very familiar now. “It is because you weren’t _made_ to win against this. You were made to submit, Thomas. You were made to cry off. You were made soft, and weak, and simple. You were stitched together poorly, Thomas, by the very thing you think you’re fighting for, the very thing you think you can fix and save.”

The light is very bright. Perhaps that’s the problem, he thinks drunkenly, perhaps he’s used to a different light upon this face.

“Thomas,” the Friar says, “has it ever occured to you that you’re fighting on the wrong side of the war that kills you and everyone you love? Has it ever occurred to you that it was especially cruel of your so-called _ka_ to leave you defenseless against such a war?”

He comes in agony, with a pain like a hammerstrike behind his eyes. He has enough time to take a shaking breath and open them again before he sees the ice-cold mouth open, sees the Friar’s head lower as he takes him, still-hard, into his mouth. It’s like plunging into a snowbank, and Thomas feels a moment of hysterical terror- _he’s going to eat me, oh god, oh god he’ll eat me alive, again this death, again this mouth_ \- before a tongue like a thick and slimy worm crawls up his length, and he chokes again on a ragged moan.

Time goes chunky- he is aware of heat and cold and a nauseating vertigo, he is aware of teeth scraping against him, drawing blood, he is aware of the cold mouth turning to bite down into the meat of his thigh, is aware of coming again.

The part of him that is a gun says: _you are going to die if you stay down here_ . The part of him that is a gun notices that he is flat on his back now, that his legs are hanging open, that his jeans are bunched and dangling from one booted foot, the other foot bare, his boot discarded on the stone floor. The part of him that is a gun notices that whatever it is, the big brass round thing on its stand is right next to his hand, and the part of him that is a gun says: _a gunslinger is never defenseless_.

A certain curdling dread rolls over him, as the Friar moves, is on top of him, cold as death itself. The part of Thomas that is not a gun can barely think, but he looks up at the face hovering over his and realizes that he knows it, so he does.

“Diff’rent,” he mumbles. His throat is sore. Has he been screaming? Aye, he thinks he has been. “Diff’rent… at dawn. Blue.” A mouth- very red and plump lips like the heart of a freshly killed rabbit- parts in a savage smile, showing perfectly white teeth in a line. “ _You?_ ”

“Me,” the Friar hisses triumphantly.

A thousand questions clamor to be spoken, but only one matters: “ _Why?_ ”

“Because no one will ever believe you,” the Friar says brightly, laughing. “Because no one will ever stop me. Because it amuses me to do so, Thomas, every time. Because there should be only one gunslinger who marks me as his nemesis, Tommy-boy, and buddy, you ain’t the one. Because I’ll never stop, not until I get what I want from you, not until-”

The part of Thomas that is a gun whispers, as if from a distant memory: _he bleeds red, he does_.

Thomas’s hand closes around the base of the round brass thing- it is very heavy, aye, and marked all ‘round like a map- and swings it into the Friar’s head, knocking him to the side. Thomas scrambles to get up off his back, up onto his feet, and trips over his own jeans, and falls forward, half-naked on the stone floor but by god, still a _gunslinger_ , no matter that he’s never going to live to see twenty-five, no matter that he is the last and least of all gunslingers, _he is still a gunslinger_ -

-Thomas wakes up facedown on a stone floor, jeans and boots on, his face aching, his chest aching, his legs and knees and the horrible thing he barely thinks of as a part of himself aching. He pulls himself upright, shaking, but there are no candles, there is no smoke, only two small windows high up where the ground level is, and an empty desk and a chair behind him. A wet, bubbling laugh rises out of him at the sight of the empty room, and it turns to a sob, and he could stay there and cry, but he thinks of Jamie, waiting for him outside in one of the tents, and can see himself staying in this room until he’s dead, and Jamie waiting for him, patient and good Jamie, best and loveliest Jamie.

He stumbles out of the small, dark room, is hit with a slight breeze from the main hallway, and is aware that his chin is slick with blood and drool. He is aware that his tongue hurts, aye, from biting it, and he thinks, desperately: yes, I bit my fool tongue, I bit it when I fell, and fell I did, for doesn’t the whole front of me hurt like I’d fallen?

Each lurching step is a battle unto itself, won only because he reminds himself that he can’t stay here, that if he stays here he’ll die, that he needs to see his Jamie, that Jamie is waiting for him now. His hair is a tangled wreck of itself, the topknot sagging to one side. He will have to ask his Jamie, ever so nice a please and a thankee, to straighten it again. He makes it to the courtyard and sees his Jamie, clever and lovely, waiting astride his packed mule- aye, cleverer than Thomas is by far, for he knew, knows, has always known that they would not _could not_ stay a night here.

He makes it halfway across before he hears the voices of not just one but many, risen up in song, and it strikes him as being lovely, the sound of all those sisters singing together, and then he hears the words-

 - _poor wandering one, though thou hast surely strayed_ -

-out of memory, out of all memories, and he staggers, sure he will faint if he has to hear any more.

Jamie raises a hand at him, and he stumbles resolutely toward the gate. Only when Jamie’s eyes widen- in apprehension, in shock- does he realize that his mouth is still bloody and wet, and he runs his arm across it, pulling himself up onto his mule.

“Thomas? Tommy, you-?” Jamie starts, trailing off, and Thomas’s voice is harsh against his own ears, and still hurts to use, as if he’s been screaming.

“Home. Go home,” he says, not a command but a desperate plea. Jamie’s face goes flat and distant. Thomas’s hand brushes against his throat, against the bruise that was sucked into being there. There is a sharp pain on his thigh where it presses against the saddle, and he thinks he will scream if he has to see a raw and bloody bite, and so he drives his eyes forward and refuses to look.

Night is very soon upon them. Thomas wants to keep going, and at first it’s not too bad, the two of them going in oppressive silence along the moonlit road, but then he looks up at the sky-

_M-O-O-N, that spells murderer_

-and almost falls out of his saddle. He has to coax Jamie off his mule, his voice hoarse and weak. The convent is still close enough to see- the moonlight reflecting off its white-stuccoed walls- but far enough away that it is just the size, perhaps, of a small cottage to his eyes. Far enough away that he can’t hear the singing, even when the wind is in the right direction. It is good. It is good enough.

He builds a fire-pit and a little fire, stacking stones around it so they can leave it burning. His hands shake terribly when he tries to light it, but he can see that he can’t ask Jamie for help. Jamie’s hands are folded loosely in his lap, his lovely eyes staring ahead.

 _Should have hidden it better_ , he thinks distantly to himself, and limps away, toward the thin, silvery stream. He brings a bucket of water for the mules, and then another one for himself and Jamie to use. It hurts to carry; it hurts to walk, but it hurts to sit or kneel or lay on his back, too, and it hurts at all times, anyway, so Thomas supposes he shouldn’t complain.

He warms the water, and takes a rag out of Jamie’s purse- for Jamie’d been able to put useful things in his, unlike daft old Tommy, with his rocks and his drawings- and carefully washes Jamie’s perfect face, his perfect hands and wrists.

“Have to borrow this, don’t I?” he rasps, trying to be funny, but ah, Bert’s the funny one. Thomas puts on the battered pot for tea, and takes the rag a little away from the fire, so that Jamie doesn’t have to see any more of this than he already has. He lets his hair down and ties it back at his neck, and washes his face first, cleaning off the salt of sweat and tears. He washes his hands, and then, trembling, he carefully opens the neck of his shirt, washing his throat and chest. There’s no mirror to see how clean he gets them, though, and he has to scrub at it, aye, and only stops because he feels, in a distant sort of manner, that his hand is cramping, that his chest and throat feel like they’ve been rubbed raw.

He reaches slowly for the button of his jeans, and stops, hand shaking too badly to fumble at it. Thomas takes a deep breath, then another and another, and then he opens his eyes, pleading with his body to obey him for once. The trembling in his hand and fingers lessens enough that he can get his jeans open, and he takes a breath again to brace himself before pulling them down and looking at the- the thing that he is almost certain he should be referring to as his _prick_ , the way he’s heard his father referring to his own.  

“Looks bad,”  he says hoarsely- he tries to reach out for Alain, to see if he can make Al laugh by thinking the word _prick_ at him, or if Al can make Bert and Roland laugh by telling them that he’d said _prick_ \- but Alain is far too far to feel or hear, not even a whisper, say sorry. He doesn’t think he actually likes the word. He watches his thing- oh, _member_ , aye, that’s a word that doesn’t sound like an awkward child, he’ll use that now- with an enormous wave of loathing. It is flaccid and pale and looks bruised, falling limp out of the brown curls at its base, tiny dots of hours-old blood beaded down the part he can see, a smear of fresher blood against it from his thigh. He doesn’t want to touch it at _all_ , but he settles on dabbing delicately at the bloodied part without looking directly toward it. He wishes he could have someone help him, and immediately feels guilty for wishing.

“Bertie’d do it, he’d think it was funny,” he whispers hopefully, wringing out the rag. “Been asking after a chance to meet this stupid thing, so he has.”

Thomas doesn’t think he can get away with not looking at the bitemark on his thigh- the blood is no longer oozing sluggishly from it, but it’ll probably get infected just to spite him if he doesn’t take a care with it. He sees the Friar’s red lips again in his mind’s eye- oh, he thinks numbly, hands shaking again, it was blood, it was _my_ blood, it was _this_ blood.

The water is run pink, and mostly cold by now. He dumps it into the grass, creeping back to the campfire with his jeans over one arm. He hesitates, glancing over at Jamie before he enters the ring of firelight, but Jamie’s gone for now, Jamie’s face is closed off, and who chased him away this time? Again daft old Tommy. At least Jamie won’t see or notice him now.

Thomas crouches next to Jamie’s purse, muttering another sorry for borrowing his field kit. He doesn’t _think_ he needs to stitch up any of the places where teeth broke through his flesh, but possibly it’s better to do it than not. He holds the needle in the flame until he scorches his fingers, blowing lightly on it so he can thread it. It takes longer than it should, and he has to stop and sternly tell his hands to stop shaking in order to get the string on.

At some point halfway through he realizes that he’s crying again. It hurts to stitch up a cut, doesn’t it? It does. That’s why. He wonders if there was something he should have taken for the pain-

  _little boys are made of rubber, colton_

 -and decides there probably wasn’t. He ties off a knot and closes his eyes, rocking in place a little on the grass. It hurts. That’s why he’s crying. It hurts.

“Aye, it does, tha’s all,” he murmurs, opening his eyes and tightly wrapping his thigh, covering the line of stitches and carefully tucking the needle and the rest of the bandage into the field kit. He pulls his jeans on and stares into the flames until the pot starts to rattle and whistle.

“Ah, time for tea, Jay, it… it…” Thomas trails off, grasping the handle of the pot with his glove, an idea springing to mind.

Jamie won’t notice if he doesn’t make the tea now, will he? No. He won’t. But the water is all a-boil, and it’s good for making things clean, too. A swift and lovely urge strikes. He could clean himself. He could pour it on himself, aye, and clean himself, he could pour the boiling pot onto that hateful thing first, and he imagines with a near-swoon of delight that he’d melt that stupid and hateful thing right off his body, best and clean and gone, _yes_ , and Alain isn’t here to feel him or hear him, Alain can’t stop him, he can do it, he can do it _right now_ -

The softest tickle of Jamie’s _khef_ , like a hand against his knuckles, and a soft sound, " _Nnhh_.”

Thomas blinks, looks over the pot at Jamie’s face, at the faintly pained expression on his dreamy-lovely face.

“Time for… time for tea,” Thomas says unsteadily, and puts the pot on a flat stone. “Sorry, Jamie, I was… I must have… forgot the tea, yes. But I can make it now.”

He makes the tea for Jamie, and cuts up a few thin slices of cured meat for him, and a few small pickles. He finds that he can’t eat anything himself just now, but he manages to coax Jamie into eating, at least. So that’s good. And he sets out Jamie’s bedroll, and gently walks him to it, and Jamie lays himself down on it, and he is glad of it, he is.

Thomas lays out his own bedroll, flattens himself on it. This close to the convent, he thinks blearily, no need for a watch. He thinks he can fall asleep without crying again. He discovers that he is right about the first thing and wrong about the second.

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 They are past the edge of the prairie-land of Debaria and at the beginning of Gilead’s borderland forest before Jamie speaks again.

 “Tommy.”

 Thomas is jolted out of his thoughts, and shoots a timid smile at him. “Sorry, Jamie. I- what?” For Jamie is pulling his mule to the side of the road, even though it’s near midday, it is.

“Make camp.” Jamie says, and Thomas blinks and shrugs, following him.

 There’s a nice enough spot near a broad stream dotted with brown stones and lined with soft mud and fist-sized river oysters. And there’s shade a-plenty, the trees stout and tall.

“I want those rocks,” Thomas says, pointing at the stream, and Jamie nods at him, preparing their camp. He dips a hand cautiously in the water- it’s cold, but not snowmelt-cold, especially in the sunshine. Thomas releases a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, and gathers up some big, flat rocks, cleaning mud and water-moss off in the current before carrying them over to make the fire-pit. He glances over at Jamie, and Jamie gives him a taut, hurt smile.

“Hunt dinner. Be back soon.”

“Alright, Jay,” Thomas says cautiously, watching him leave. The bah is a quiet weapon, so Thomas isn’t surprised that he doesn’t hear anything- though he is a little surprised when Jamie comes back empty-handed after an hour or two. He worries that Jamie will have gone away again, but Jamie meets his eyes. “Hile, Jamie?”

“Hile, Thomas,” he replies, putting his bah and sheaf of bolts away in his purse before turning to give Thomas a searching look. “May I sit?”

“Oh, of course, dear,” Thomas says, puzzled that he’d feel the need to ask, but then he sits in Thomas’s lap, legs curled around his waist, hands on his shoulders. He is careful not to put his weight on Thomas’s hurt thigh, because he’s so good, so kind and good to his daft old Tommy. Thomas runs his hands over Jamie’s back, giving Jamie’s jaw a tentative, curious nuzzle. Jamie’s hands go to the sides of Thomas’s face to stop him, stroking his cheek a little before moving down to his shoulders. Thomas blinks into Jamie’s eyes for a moment or two more before Jamie speaks.

“You can tell me,” he says quietly. Thomas has to strain to hear him, his hands stilling so that the rustle of clothing doesn’t block the sound of his voice any. Jamie’s eyes flick down to the yellowing bruise on Thomas’s throat, down lower still, then back up to Thomas’s face, his gaze imploring. “You can tell me, Tommy.”

Unsaid and very clear, clearer than his voice is now: _All of them, Tommy. Not just this. You can tell me anything_.

Thomas swallows nervously, averting his eyes. “I don’t- I don’t-”

_because no one will ever believe you_

Thomas trails off, blushing. “I don’t know, Jamie.”

Jamie nods stiffly, pulling his arms around Thomas’s neck, pressed flush against his front. Thomas strokes his back a couple of times again, waiting for Jamie to speak or not-speak, waiting for Jamie to move or not-move. He’s perfectly content to stay like this until something happens, or until his body starts warning him that he’ll limp all day if he doesn’t stop, but-

-but he’s worried about this, too, about Jamie, about this conversation, about where it is going. He can’t bear to hurt Jamie again, he really can’t.

After several long moments, Jamie’s hand moves to his throat, slim fingers brushing against the healing bruise, his mouth pressed into the shell of Thomas’s ear.

“Someone. Did this. To you.” Thomas swallows nervously, and Jamie’s soft voice continues. “People. Have done things. Your father…?”

“I-I don’t-” Thomas’s breath catches, and he buries his face against Jamie’s neck for a moment. “Somewhens yes. Somewhens no. It’s- it’s not the same, Jay, it’s not- he just _wants_ to, he doesn’t always-”

“My f-f-f-” Jamie has to stop, and starts again, very strained. “The doctor did things. Before, when. When I still lived with him. Before I went to stay with Cuthbert and his parents.”

Thomas holds him, and he starts weeping- not in the manful silence that Roland and Bert and even Alain have mastered, not even the weak, kicked-dog snuffling and sobbing Thomas’s father hates so much- but in harsh, ragged cries and sucking howls, his body shaking in Thomas’s arms, his chest beating against his.

Thomas does not tell Jamie that he knows, though their ka-tet has carried a wordless suspicion for years- and, with a sense of helpless horror, he realizes that he _does_ know, has known, that he can _remember_ , the words and the feelings slotting into place as he remembers the first times Jamie ever tells him this: Jamie at seventeen telling him for the first time, Jamie at thirteen telling him for the first time, Jamie at eight telling him for the first time, Jamie at twenty-two, Jamie at ten, Jamie as they flee the flames of Gilead and the corpse of Dr. DeCurry, Jamie as they poke into the fire before their final battle.

Thomas doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what he _can_ do. He holds Jamie close, afraid, not sure what he fears but dreading it all the same.

Jamie quiets down, slowly, and Thomas thumbs his tears away, pressing a kiss against the corner of his mouth, another at the corner of his jaw. He tries to send wordless love and reassurance and comfort and protection, tries to be solid, ignores the curdle of shame in his chest that reproaches him for making Jamie worry over him.

Thomas gently runs his hands over Jamie’s face, gently dragging the tips of his fingers through his hair. He wishes he could say something right for once, wishes he knew what would even sound right to his ears.

“You, ah-” He swallows with a dry clicking in his throat. It sounds toothless and silly even before he says it, but he can’t think of anything else he could offer. “You want me to fetch some water and maybe some of those shellfish I saw, Jay?”

Jamie gives him a soft look- nothing that can pretend itself a smile, but a response, wordless love and gratitude and comfort and protection. He looks exhausted, as though he’s been running all this way, and his hand gives Thomas’s shoulder a squeeze.  “Sure, Tommy.”

They sit for a bit more, though, the return of the silence in the shady camp nothing they want to interrupt quite yet.

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It takes just over a week for them to finish three days’ worth of travel to get back to the castle. They are in no hurry, but it’s still too soon for either of them.

The rest of their ka-tet won’t be back for months- Thomas doesn’t need to remember other times to know that- and neither of them are prepared to see the rest of their ka-tel, and Thomas idly thinks he could do without it, anyway. Thomas would be happy to lurk in his bed, or in Jamie’s, reading and rereading the copies he made for himself of his tattooist manuscripts, for the next three months, until his friends are all home, or- well. Until two of his friends and a pink-sick Roland are home.

But there is a nagging, itching twinge in his thigh when he climbs down off the mule and gently nudges it into the stable, and he could probably have ignored it if he didn’t have to unpack his purse and see the dried bloodstain on the leg of his other jeans.

Al’s better at getting stains out than he is, and he thinks Bert would be better by far at taking a look to see what his stitches are doing, but neither of them is here. He carefully folds the jeans and puts them in the bottom of his purse, unsure what to do, unhappy to realize he’s going to have to look down there again.

Just a quick peek, but it doesn’t look good- the skin around his clumsy stitches is puffy and red, and when he presses against it, a clear liquid seeps a little out of a few spots, and it hurts all the worse. He hastily re-bandages it, though, for he’s not sure what else he could do. He scrubs wearily at his face, and puts on a clean shirt, rolling the sleeves to his elbows out of habit and tying his hair back up. He would like to sleep for another day, at the very least, but he knows he has to report to Sai Deschain that his lady wife was delivered safely.

He tries not to limp through the halls, and mostly succeeds- and nobody would really notice if he did, besides, because he’s been stitched together poorly, so he has.

Sai Deschain certainly doesn’t seem to notice anything amiss when he approaches him in the Great Hall, eyes on the floor. His father isn’t there this time, which is a relief, but neither is Master Vannay, which… is not. Sai Deschain, at least, didn’t expect there to be any trouble, and accepts Thomas’s quiet assertion that Gabrielle arrived safely without any further questions before dismissing him.

Thomas leaves the hall, wondering idly if he could rouse Jamie and get his help with the dried-in bloodstain, and immediately recoils against the thought… but he also thinks of standing in the Great Hall just now, and thinks that perhaps there’s someone else he can ask.

He follows his feet to where he is sure- well, reasonably sure- that Master Vannay lives, alone with his books and his instruments. And what he feels peeking into the window- aye, books and things he cannot guess the meaning of- is that it looks to be the place, but there is no answer at his knock nor sound of rustling movement as a listener tries to hide from a-knocking. A curious puzzlement, and in truth discouragement enough to send him back to try to see what he could do to his jeans with a scour and an afternoon, but then he thinks of how he also hasn't seen Cort lately, either.

He has a very vague knowledge that Roland's battle with him was the last one. He is not overkeen on seeing the man- he has nightmares often, and an embarrassing number of those are of Cort's face and voice and the unkindness of his hands- but he knows, with a dizzying and stark sadness that often accompanies the first time he realizes this, that Cort loves him like he loves even the best of them, and that Cort truly believes that he must be harsh and hard, and make the boys in his care harsher and harder still.

It does not make him any more eager to see or approach the violent man who's been one of the most constant forces in his life, but it does make it just a little less life-shortening to see if Cort might have a visitor in the other constant force in Thomas’s childhood.

The cottage is not dark, but the great field it rests in is, aye, dark enough that no one will see Thomas limp across it. He raises one shaking fist, lowers it, sure he’s made a terrible mistake, raises it again and finally knocks.

The door is opened not by Cort or even by Master Vannay, but by a girl his age- oh, by a lovely girl his age, one he knows faintly, too.

“Aileen?” he asks numbly, then, because it’s the only answer that he can make sense of, “Miss Aileen, aye? Are- are you a _nurse_ or-?” He can’t bring himself to say _whore_ , for the word puts him in mind of some distantly familiar battlefield, and of his father, and of the smoke-filled office with its stone floor.

“I live here, Thomas,” Aileen says, then, a touch exasperated, “lived here for five years now, Thomas, with my uncle. As I feel you ought to have grasped, in this time.”

Thomas stares blankly at her. He might know it, aye, and might have known it before, but he’s trying very hard to reconcile the image of Aileen being _Cort’s niece_ with the actual mental image those words bring to mind. Possibly a younger Cort with Bert’s hair, if he has to put a name to it.

“Thomas, I’ll not have you stand in the door and waste the wind,” she says, and he puts a hand to his mouth. “What did you come here for?”

“I was actually- ah-” It seems silly now, and he wrings his hands. “I was hoping to see if I’d find Master Vannay here, is all.”

“Abel is here,” she says, and he blanches slightly at the thought of calling Master Vannay by his given name. “He is attending to my uncle now.”

“Oh,” Thomas says, his face burning. “I should- I shouldn’t have come, I think, I-”

“Thomas?”

Over Aileen’s shoulder, he can see a rough door open, see Master Vannay standing in a pool of light. He seems very tired, and mildly surprised. Thomas raises one weak hand.

“Welcome home, Thomas. Don’t harangue the lad, Miss Ritter, let him in,” Master Vannay says, and then, turning back to the room, Thomas can hear him say quietly, “Wonders never cease, Cortland, for you’ve a visitor.”

Aileen raises an eyebrow at Thomas, but doesn’t correct Master Vannay, and lets Thomas in. He peeks surreptitiously around the front room, out of a morbid and horrified curiosity, then shuffles painfully into the room with Master Vannay and- agonizingly- Cort himself.

Thomas isn’t sure what he’d expected- sort of, perhaps, a vision of the man diminished by his bedrest, a melancholy ghost of himself. Mostly he just looks like the same old Cort but at a different angle, though there’s a badly-healing scar on his face.

(From David, poor David, Thomas thinks, and has to try very hard not to wince at the thought.)

“I’ll make- I’ll make a pot of tea, I think,” Master Vannay says, layering mortification upon mortification as he leaves the room, and Aileen, lovely girl though she is, doesn’t even see fit to stand as a buffer between Thomas and the bedridden man.

Cort’s remaining eye is a catlike slit. “Is that the Whitman boy?”

“It is,” Thomas sighs. “It’s Thomas, Cort.”

“Come to peek at a sickly man, are ye?” he asks, and Thomas shakes his head.

“No, sai- _oh_ ,” he says, realizing something. “You know a trick for getting bloodstains out of denim, sai?”

“You came to your dying master’s bedside to ask for help with your laundry, boy?” Cort asks, wheezing.

“Oh, no, sai, you’re not dying,” Thomas says brightly. “Still have a year left, you have.”

“How generous of you to say so,” Cort says, still a bit wheezy.

“You want I should ask Master Vannay for some water for you, Cort?” Thomas asks, concerned, but Cort waves him off.

“Come closer, boy, I have a question.”

Thomas hobbles carefully over to his side, hoping against past evidence that Cort will not do anything alarming, and Cort, for his part, grabs hold of his shirt-collar and yanks him close.

“Why are you limping so?” he growls. “Has some poor fool boy attacked you now that your stronger friends are gone east?”

“Oh… no,” Thomas says, trying very hard not to breathe in the smell of Cort’s breath. “I haven’t been here at all the past three weeks, sai, was off delivering Lady Deschain to the- to- the- to the-” He struggles, shaking his head. “She had- Debaria. To go there. We went with her.”

“That doesn’t answer my question of why you drag your leg like an old man,” Cort says roughly, and Thomas swallows.

“Ah, had to give myself stitches, so- that’s why the blood, see, I got to get the blood out of the- the denim-”

“Aye, and I’m sure you’ll need advice next on how to mend torn denim, then?” Cort asks, and Thomas shakes his head. “Well, then? What happened?”

Thomas gapes at him, and realizes that Cort’s let go of his shirt, may have some time ago, too.

“I- I don’t-” he starts, and after a moment shakes his head. “I got to… to get the blood out of the denim. I think I… I think it’s… could be infected, I know not.”

“The denim, Thomas?” Cort asks, and Thomas answers without thinking.

“Oh, no, sai, the bite.”

Cort shakes his head slowly, sitting a little up against his headboard. “An animal? I fear the answer, but what kind of-”

“No, he wasn’t-” Thomas starts, then, looking at the expression on Cort’s face, “he- wasn’t- not an animal, no, a-”

“Did a _boy_ bite you?” Cort asks, slightly aghast. “Hard enough to need stitches, Thomas?”

“No,” Thomas says, in a very small voice. He can hear very clearly the Friar’s laughing boast, _because no one will ever believe you_ , and he doesn’t want Cort to think he ought to be sent back to that convent or someplace like it, no he does not.

Cort is very quiet. Finally he speaks, very slowly and deliberately.

“An infection’s nothing to make light of, Thomas. If you think it’s infected-” Thomas opens his mouth, and Cort makes a hurried motion with his hand to silence him. “-is this in a delicate spot, lad? On your-”

“Just my leg,” Thomas says quickly, for he also would happily go to his grave- well, _this_ grave- without knowing what word Cort was going to say for _member_. “Just my leg, is all. Just- just a, a delicate, um, part of leg.”

Cort draws a hand down his face. “Hasn’t there been enough of this?” he murmurs, incomprehensibly.

“I don’t-” Thomas starts uneasily. “Only- I suppose you’re very busy- well, not you, necessarily, but-”

“Sit,” Cort barks, and Thomas scrambles into the only chair. “Who, then?”

“I-” Thomas trails off, realizing he doesn’t rightly know. “I don’t know his name. He’s…” _He kills me every time._ “He seems very familiar. I thought he was a priest first. I couldn’t see- it was dark, and his clothes all black, just so, and- I thought- I just wanted to, to repent, they said it was for that, but…”

“Thomas,” Cort says, and his voice is very low and dangerous, the kind of voice, Thomas thinks, that a dagger would have, perhaps- dark metal, flowing lines, a serrated edge to it. Thomas blinks, coming back to himself, and realizes with a small start that Cort has waited- been waiting- for him to come back and listen, that Cort hasn’t just spoken until reaching the empty space where Thomas was supposed to reply back. It’s a patience he knows Jamie has for him, and Alain, and Roland and Bert when they’re older.

“Y-yes, Cort?” he asks, unnerved and unnamably pleased and unnerved further at that feeling.

“There has never been a boy who required penance _less_ ,” Cort says, still in that knife-edge voice. Thomas harbors some doubts, there, but Cort reads his face like a signpost, it seems. “Did this man all in black tell you that you needed to repent, Thomas?”

“Aye, so he did,” Thomas mutters quietly, looking at his knees. “Said, ah, said I’d been sinful.”

 “ _Thomas_ ,” Cort says again. “Some maggot wearing man’s flesh said it. Did _I_ say it?”

“No…?” Thomas says, frowning.

“Did your Master Vannay say it?” he asks, and Thomas shakes his head. “Do ye really think that we don’t know you a bit better than that man might, then?”

“Well… no,” Thomas says uneasily, for this is a lie, surely, because no matter what Cort thinks he knows, he doesn’t know all of Thomas, and wouldn’t believe him, even if he tried to say.

If Cort reads that on his face, though, he says nothing.

“Comes to mind,” he says gruffly. “Abel- that’d be Master Vannay to _you_ , boy-” Thomas nods quickly. “-is practiced enough at medicine to see to your leg, if it’s as bad as all that. He may well know a thing or two about removing a bloodstain, too.”

Thomas does not say that this was always his intention, because he’s sure that’d be rude- he only nods mutely, and sits in the momentary quiet before the tutor in question enters the room with a tea tray that clearly must have come from Master Vannay’s home.

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Thomas is twenty-two years of age- give or take, for the counting of the days has grown wobbly- and he and Aileen have been sent to scout ahead, to gauge how welcoming the next town might be to a roving pack of hard-faced young men toting iron and the scars of battle. Aileen could have gone alone- aye, and not been in much more danger than she might be with Thomas- and she does not enjoy that Roland had decided she needed a chaperone, and enjoys less that Cuthbert had laughed and said she’d be the finest wife Thomas could have hoped for and tried to pinch her cheek before having his hand slapped away by an embarrassed Alain.

 Thomas can see these things, and hasn’t got the Touch like Alain does, isn’t good at people the way Cuthbert is. He can’t imagine that Bert doesn’t know how badly she feels, and it troubles him that his lovely Cuthbert would push her away so. _Roland_ , though, he’s sure will never understand her feelings until she grasps him by the collar and tells him, and even then, Thomas admits, he doesn’t see that this would affect Roland’s thoughts or decisions.

It’s an unusual thought- one, he recognizes, he’s had before, in this When and in different Whens, too, for it feels to him that maybe half of the time, Aileen has made it to the last battle with them. That, too, disturbs him, for he cannot draw his mind back far enough to see her in that early dawn light.

She touches his sleeve and he stops, blinking, as she motions to the mossy-roofed saloon.

“I’m sorry about the dress,” he tells her sincerely, and Aileen’s face quirks slightly into a half-smile.

“Wasn’t you that put it on me,” she points out, good-natured enough.

“I’ll help take it off if you-” he starts, then stops, mortified as her smile widens and becomes teasing. “Oh, no, ‘Leeny, I don’t- not like a- oh, dear, I didn’t mean-”

“Don’t fret on it, Tommy, I know you’re not like that,” she says, giving his hand a squeeze. “But we’re to go inside and gather information.”

“ _You’re_ to gather information,” Thomas sighs unhappily. “Daft old Tommy has got to sit and look fierce.”

“Well, aren’t you?” she teases, her thumb running over the back of his knuckles. “You’re my husband tonight, you know, I would not have wed you if you weren’t fierce and strong.”

Thomas feels himself turn red-hot, and he mumbles something incoherent even to himself as he leads her into the saloon and orders her a meal, and the both of them beers. There is music playing- seems to be a lady on a poorly-tuned piano and a fellow with some sort of slim black instrument in his hands, blowing into the top of it and moving his fingers over holes all down the front. Some kind of flute, maybe, but-?

“Thomas, you haven’t touched your drink,” Aileen says quietly, and he struggles to understand her, to understand what she wants, until she puts her hand over his, and puts a smile on her face, wide and startling. “Feeling a-jitter, darling?”

A shadow falls over the table; the town’s lawman, or one of them, at least: it seems like a big enough community to need more than just the one. He smells very strongly of tobacco smoke and worn leather, Thomas thinks, though all he can really see of the man is a great big bushy beard.

“Harriers are unwelcome overnight, partner,” the lawman says, one hand resting on his sidearm, the other resting on a truncheon. “It will not go well for you to try that welcome.”

“M’not a- a _harrier_ ,” Thomas says, scandalized. “Why should you say so, then?”

The lawman’s eyes rove over him. “Well, for starts, you come into town from the north, where harriers are known to nest, and you’ve got a pair of long irons holding your pants on, don’t ye?” Thomas blinks, dismayed, and the man adds, “Not to mention you’ve got ink on your hands, and your kind are known to do so, as a marker and a warning-”

“Oh, no, sai, not these, you see?” Thomas can feel Aileen stiffen beside him, but it’s been quite a long time since anybody wanted to know about his tattoos, and he’s quite proud of them, so he is. He rolls his sleeves, to give the man a better look. “This-yere is the crown of briar-thorns, so as to keep demons from me, and these sigils are for the delights of sailors, fortune and weather and-”

The lawman’s hands clap down over his, hiding the tattoos from sight, and crushing his fingers too, a tad. “These marks are in the High Speech of Gilead, young man, are you…”

His eyes widen over his beard, and for a second Thomas is lost, and then for another second Thomas is sick with anxious reckoning, for he’s sure he wasn’t meant to cause such a scene, or speak so freely, either.

“You _are_ ,” the lawman breathes out. Aileen puts her hand- lovely, it is, but not soft, the calluses of work and of gunhandling on it- over the lawman’s.

“We are in need of rest and succor, sai, for us as well as for our lord,” she says, and Thomas swallows nervously, afraid to speak again and say something else he wasn’t meant to. He knows he wasn’t meant to speak at all if he could help it. He knows they’d been meant to study the lay of the town discreetly, and that he was sent along because Roland didn’t trust that Aileen could do it, and he’d had another job for Bert and Al.

He knows that Aileen is talking, still, to the lawman. That the lawman is responding in turn, aye, but directing his words to _him_ , even though he can barely make sense of the rumble of their voices. He knows that Roland hadn’t needed him for anything, because he’s a foolish old Tommy, and he knows that he was only sent along because Aileen, who is not foolish, not at all, is a lady.

He realizes, with a growing curl of panic and dismay, that sometimes he really and truly wants to knock Roland over and have a good yell at him.

Aileen puts her hand on his shoulder, and he glances over at her.

“That sounds lovely, doesn’t it, sweetheart?” she asks. “Doesn’t it sound as though it suits us?”

He panics, still thinking of Roland, and tries to think of what Roland would say or do.

“We shall see,” he says slowly, and the lawman nods.

“Spoken like a true gunslinger,” he murmurs, and Thomas has to quickly reach for his now-lukewarm beer to hide the urge to grin hysterically at it. Once the lawman turns to speak to the bartender, Aileen gives his wrist a pat.

“They’re giving us a room, Tom,” she says softly.

“We won’t _all_ fit in one room,” Thomas says quietly, and she shakes her head.

“No. Not all of us. Just the two of us. We’re married, remember?”

He frowns, thinking of Jamie on the hard ground, of Alain and Bert trying to find a moment of privacy in a crowded camp- even Roland, annoyed as he is at him, trying to catch an hour’s peace at a time.

“Will these people help us?” he asks, and she nods. It will have to do. “Is there something else we have to do first?”

She nods. “You know there’s always something such people want. We’ll need to be rested by morning, I gather.”

Thomas hums a little. He supposes so. There’s a danger here, for a town that may one day lie in the path of Farson’s armies. And there’s ever been a danger, for all towns everywhere, since Gilead fell. It makes sense that they’ll have to earn their aid, whatever form it takes. Still, it makes him… uncomfortable, and guilty, to think of sleeping on a soft bed, and of waking up without the pain of sleeping.

“Will we _have_ to be rested in the morning?” he asks plaintively, hoping for some way to back out of this stolen moment of luxury.

“You’re a very silly person, Thomas,” she says, and he sighs.

“Aye, that’s what I’ve been told,” he agrees.

The rented room is… nice enough. Bigger than the barracks had been, bigger than his nursery had been, bigger than the study his mother had kept, writing letters home and telling him stories as a boy. He tries not to mope visibly as he undresses, and is only mildly startled when he turns to see Aileen still mostly-dressed, her boots and jacket and gloves off but the great big twice-skirted dress still on.

“Not sleepy, then?” he asks, rubbing his face, and she gives him a flickering glance.

“Not a shy boy, our Tommy,” she comments dryly.

“You don’t sleep in your clothes, do you?” he asks, blinking. “Should think you’d be smothered, ‘Leeny.”

“I need a hand with the buttons up the back,” she sighs, motioning over one shoulder. “Claire did me up. This is hers, you know.”

“Oh, I thought I recognized the dress,” he says, going behind her to start grappling with a row of far too many buttons. “Is this thing _meant_ to come off of you, I wonder?”

“It’s not mine,” she says sternly. “And you’ll kindly notice I don’t wear anything this… this…”

“Buttoned,” Thomas supplies helpfully, and she sighs.

“True enough, Tommy-lad.” Once he gets most of them undone, it’s not too hard for her to wrestle herself out of the dress, tossing the pile of skirting onto him. “Should hang that, I think.”

“Oh, alright,” Thomas murmurs, running his hand over it a little. He’s not entirely sure why Aileen doesn’t like it, and it may not be as intricate as what he remembers of the courtly ladies of Gilead, but it’s got a charm in it, all the same.

He’s not sure how long he sits there petting the dress, before she comes over to him and takes it- not sharply, no, just of a sudden. “Sorry, ‘Leeny-love.”

“It’s Claire’s, you know,” she says quietly, hanging it over a peg on the wall.

“Yes, you said,” Thomas says, unsure of what he’s intruded on. “She’s a lovely lady, isn’t she?”

Aileen throws him a look over one bare shoulder, and that _is_ sharp, but after a moment she motions to the bed.

He hasn’t slept in a bed in months, and then it was just a wooden frame with a pair of bedrolls on it, only kept warm because he’d been wrapped around Jamie and had in turn been wrapped up with Cuthbert at his back. He barely remembers how to climb onto something so large and soft, and feels incredibly foolish sinking into the mattress under the faded quilt.

“Wish Jamie was here now, I do,” he mutters, and Aileen gives his long hair a tug. “Yowch, Aileen.”

“Lay down with me, Tom, I’m cold,” she says, and after a moment’s hesitation he does, wrapping his arm around her. She strokes his arm a little, over the scar and his first tattoo. “My uncle Cort thought this was so cunning, you know.”

“What, the bird?” he asks weakly, and she huffs a small laugh.

“He kept your needles for you.”

“So he did,” Thomas muses, for he knows this, from many a When. “Very confusing man, was your uncle.”

“Taught me everything I know,” she adds, and he nods.

“I had a great and terrible fear of him until the day he died, and even then, wasn’t so sure it wasn’t a trick to catch us off guard,” he says, and she makes a small noise at that. “T’was just his way, I wot. He didn’t want us to think he had a softness in him.”

“Not like you,” she says, and he hums in agreement. “You’re nothing but a softness, Tom.”

“Do you say so?” he asks sleepily, and she strokes his arm again.

“I do. And not just because you’re layin’ a-bed with me without a stitch of clothing between us and without any sign of a hardness, either.”

Thomas blinks a few times, before inhaling sharply.

“‘Leeny! That’s- that’s _tart_ ,” he wheezes, and she laughs with him. “That’s a Bertie thing to say, it is.”

“Oh, don’t say so, he’s such a mean boy,” Aileen giggles, turning to look at him, and Thomas sits up a little, waggling his eyebrows in the near-dark.

“I do a terrible Bert impersonation, care to see it, lovey?” he asks, lowering his voice until it hits what he hopes is a husky, flirtatious register. “H-hallo, Aileen. Care to- to go for a- a frolick in the, the sunshine?”

“That is _quite_ terrible,” she agrees, laughing into his shoulder. “And I feel that you know very well after all these years he’s more likely still to speak plainly when he wants to shock and flirt- straight and, when it’s present, to the point. So to say.”

Thomas guffaws a little, burying his face against her hair. “So he does, so he does. What a silly man, our Cuthbert. Silly and lovely, aye.”

“To you, perhaps,” she says. They lay in the quiet for a few minutes more, before she taps his hand. “I have an impertinent question for you.”

“Oh, my word,” he mutters.

“How long have-” She pauses. “How long have you known how you feel about Jamie?”

Thomas pets her stomach a few times, before rolling onto his back with a sigh.

“Well… I don’t know how to say,” he says, hands folded over the blanket. “I can say it was the first time I saw him. I can say… before I knew what beauty was, I knew Jamie. Before I knew of a light in the darkness, I knew my Jamie. I live, I die, I wake up again to my Jamie. Jamie was a breeze on my face after a hot and loveless day long before I knew those things, Jamie was the moon on the waters, the sand and the waves, the edge of one thing and the begin of another. Jamie…”

He holds his hands up, caressing nothing in the darkness. “If I have died a thousand times, I know that I was gifted with a thousand times his face, his hands, his eyes. If I die a thousand more, I’ll die again, and wake up to him again.”

Aileen turns to him, pillowing her head on her folded arm as she looks at him. “That’s beautiful, Thomas.”

“It only is,” he sighs, lowering his hands. “I suspect it will be forever, but-”

“Of course you’d love him forever, Thomas,” she says, and he closes his mouth, suddenly more weary than he realized, before.

“Will it be shooting, tomorrow, do you suppose?” he asks, his voice catching in his throat.

“More likely than not,” she says quietly, wrapping around him. “That’s what it always comes to, doesn’t it?”

“Mm. True enough,” he murmurs. He wonders why she isn’t always there, where she goes in the Whens that don’t include her. He wonders if there’s a key here, something he could give her, something that might change or even fix the dark and dreadful course of his lives. He paws at her hand a little. “I love you very much, you know, Aileen.”

“Aye, and who’s the silly, lovely man now, then?” she asks, and presses a chaste kiss against his shoulder, smoothing her hand over the radiant rose, tattooed over his heart. “Go to sleep, Tommy, and we’ll rise with the sun.”

Neither of them will see twenty-five. He doesn’t let this information keep him awake, tonight.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A sniper’s bullet. An ax handle exploding. Seven brains splashing out like ripened fruit that falls too far. A pike at Roland’s back. A man with a trident - is that new? - and a man who has a shield one moment and has a limp, shattered arm the next. Reload. A bullet grazing his side, and a man falling dead. A man with a gun, aiming for Bert’s kidney. A sword shattering into slivers beside him.

A man whose head explodes as his club flies, and Thomas tries to sidestep it and isn’t quite fast enough. His knee doesn’t shatter this time, praise Gan, but it bangs into the side of his leg hard enough to force him down onto the knee, just long enough for the Troitans rushing his position to sense and understand his weakness.

Thomas shoots three men dead- gut shots, alas, he’s not used to shooting them from this high up- and looks around, eyes wild.

“Come on out, then!” he screams, his voice raw, aye, for he’s been crying since it all began. “Come on out, for I’m not the child I was, sai, oh no I am _not!_ ”

A man yells something in the foreign tongue this army uses, has used, will always use, and Thomas doesn’t have a head for languages, and understands nothing. The man is not _his_ man, though, and when he raises a battleaxe high Thomas shoots him through the throat, lurching up to his feet as he does.

He manages to reload half his shells before ice cold hands grasp him from behind, and he drops them, aye, six bullets dancing into the mud. The hands are as strong as he remembers, the mouth against his neck just as cold.

“You’re always the child you were, Tommy-boy,” the man purrs into his ear. Thomas tries to yank himself away, and the man loops his arm around his throat as he kicks his already-weakened leg out from under him. The man’s strong- aye, that Thomas knows from past experience- and Thomas is gagging and seeing spots before the man releases him, dropping him to the blood-churned mud and grass.

 _He sounds the same_ , Thomas thinks wildly, shuddering as he tries to scramble back to his feet, and a heavy boot falls onto the small of his back with a _crack_ . Still he tries, at least to get halfway up and shoot what few bullets he managed to load, and the man fetches a savage kick against his side, flipping him onto his back and winding him terribly. 

The man is not a Friar now. The blue paint on his face is smeared away from his mouth and chin- Thomas raises his hand, still clutching the gun, and almost absentmindedly rubs blue paint off of the side of his neck with the heel of his palm- but his eyes are the same, his teeth the same.

The man stands astraddle of his body, and Thomas flinches without meaning to, for the man’s in a kilt, and Thomas can see the man’s fishwhite thighs, hairless and smooth, all the way up to his far-too-large and hardening-

“-you should get used to saying _prick_ , Tommy,” the man says, grinning. Thomas can’t help but grimace, and he laughs- and around them, the warriors who came in thousands to murder a handful of gunslingers laugh, too, those who aren’t bleeding into the grass.

“I don’t know that I will,” Thomas says raggedly. He can’t seem to get enough air into him to speak as loudly as he likes, though. He licks his lips, thinking back, aye, he’s had this before, the rib gone through the lung- it explains how hard it is to breathe, it explains the blood on the back of his tongue. Even if they all left him here now, he thinks blearily, he’d never live through the day. Jamie was the one with all the training, medically speaking.

The man drops to a crouch and Thomas lets out a soft, terrified sound, trying to pull himself back on his arms- his legs, it seems, don’t want to obey him, but on the bright side, they suddenly don’t hurt, do they? And the man laughs, and the men surrounding them laugh.

The man leans forward, opening Thomas’s shirt with a careless jerk of his icy hand. “This again?”

The radiant rose over Thomas’s heart lies exposed, as it always is, as it always was. The man’s eyes are hard, despite the curl of his grin. “Surely you don’t think you’re worthy of the rose, little sinner that you are?”

Thomas furrows his brow, despite the revulsion in him at how close the man is- close enough that the cold is coming off of him in waves, pressing a chill from his thighs and from the weight of the thing against Thomas’s waist.

“My word, but you don’t half like to hear yourself talk,” he mumbles, coughing wetly, and in a shivery moment of recollection he remembers- his chin wet with blood as it is, his body hurting as it does, the cold of the man’s eyes and hands- the part of himself that is always a gun, and its soft, brass-shelled voice, telling him long ago that a gunslinger is never defenseless.

Thomas tries to keep his head up, though he’s very sure now that he can smell it again, the spice-smoke of the candles. The man cups his face in one hand, an icy thumb pressing past his lips, opening his mouth, smearing the blood on his face when Thomas twists weakly away. There’s laughter again, though fainter, surely.

“Aren’t y’ever…” Thomas gurgles, and the man thumps his chest, forcing a mouthful of blood out of him.

“Come on, Tommy-boy, it’s too late to beg for this one, but you can never get started too early on the next go-round,” the man says merrily, and Thomas tries to keep his eyes steady on the man, on the man’s face and not the horrible thing pressed up against him. “Speak up, lad, you don’t have all morning!”

“Don’t y’ever get tired o’this?” Thomas asks, and the man laughs, a high, tittering cackle, very like the noise of a flock of birds, Thomas thinks, his mind going all fuzzy and liquid as he laughs.

“I’ll never tire of this, Tommy-boy, not until you start this battle covered in blue paint and come back to my tent to celebrate our win,” he says, and Thomas coughs again, his vision blossoming black roses all across it.

“Don’t think… I see that as happ’ning,” he moans, his chest twitching as he tries to breathe in and cannot. He remembers his guns- he forgot them, aye, everything seems to be going again- and tries to raise one. Ice cold hands cup the sides of his face; ice cold thumbs press against the bone of his eye sockets, just below his eyes, and Thomas knows what he’s going to do, and he can see the glee on the man’s face when the man knows he knows.

“Maybe you’ll make better choices next time ‘round, eh Tommy?” the man asks, almost like a friend, and then his thumbs press inwards.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3 warnings/tags: implied rape, implied murder, implied incest, Stephen King's IT, mind-control, possession, mind-sharing, mindscape visiting

The beginnings are always the same.

Verise Whitman is twenty-six years old- older than her son will ever be- when he climbs into her lap, cooing and petting her shoulder and neck, giving her soft, snuffling kisses.

“What’s this, poppet?” she asks softly, and little Tommy rocks back a little, regarding her with such a wide-eyed, serious cast to his face that she almost starts to worry.

“A story,” he prompts, and she laughs at that, for does she not give him all the stories his little heart could want?

“Shall I tell you the story of Captain Farris, then, or perhaps the story of the little boy and the sea?” she asks teasingly, for those are the two he loves best- the first one a classic, the second one a lovely made-up story, something they come up with together.

“Oh,” he says, brightening up, then pauses, looking intently at his soft, pudgy little hands for a moment. He’ll be five soon, and looming ever closer is the specter of the gun- but she would like to think, like to hope, that not this boy, as sweet and soft as he is. Let him away to her mother’s people, her brother’s family; let him away to the seaside, and be free of the gun, and of the fealty and servitude and reddish work the boys who are called to the gun must perform. She kisses his forehead, not knowing that this wish will never be granted.

“New story,” he says slowly, looking up at her. “New story.”

“You want me to tell you a new story, lovey? I know a few-” she starts, and he shakes his head, so that the chestnut mop of his hair flies out. He stops, huffing, and- curiously- puts his hand over his chest, right over where his tiny heart must beat. She wonders at that- does he feel his own heartbeat, then? Is he aware, even now, of what that thump of life’s blood is?

“Want… to know,” he says slowly, blinking prodigiously up at her. “Want the story. A big white place, with… a lot of white ladies.”

“White ladies?” she repeats, unsure of his meaning, and he holds his hands out on the sides of his face- exactly, she realizes, like the wimples of holy women and Sisters. Verise laughs again out loud, delighted at her boy, at everything about him. “D’you mean these ladies robed all in white, Tommy?”

“Aye, Mama,” he says, brightening up. “An’ there’s a big… a window? But it’s a drawing. Is… big, pink, lovely flower, bright-soft lovely always, aye.” He trails off, giving her the sweet, dreamy grin he gets when he gets started on a tangent. “Not as nice as the boy who is seaside, Mama, but very nice.”

“Why, Thomas, do you mean the rose window? At Our Lady of the Rose?” she asks, and he gives her a confused look, before nodding uncertainly. She sits him up higher on her lap, tilting her head- it’s never occurred to her that he might have the Touch, for though it isn’t as rare as some might think, he’s never had that natural intuitive nature as a baby or toddler, and she knows the little Johns boy has always displayed it himself, and wee Wallace Vannay even more so. She gives the sides of his body a tickle, and he bursts into gleeful, delighted giggles. “When did you hear of this place, Thomas?”

“I don’t remember,” he chortles, wagging his arms at her. “Again, again!”

“As you wish, lovey,” she chuckles, and he falls over onto her, wracked with the high, sweet baby-laugh she loves so well. She supposes she can call ‘round to Abel Vannay, who may as yet be able to detect the Touch in him, if it dwells there as it dwells in young Wallace. “Do you still want the story, then?”

“Aye, story! Story for Tommy, aye!” he chirps, and she gives him another kiss on the top of his head. How _does_ one compress, she thinks, all of existence and the magic of it and the sadness and hope, aye, into a single story for an easily distracted boy of four?

She will endeavor to start, at least, and if he wiggles himself away during, why, he’ll just have to settle for Captain Farris next time he asks.

“Well, the place you speak of sounds very like a place that I’ve been to, when I was just a girl.” A wayward, unhappy bride-to-be, promised to a man ten years her senior. “And the ladies in white are Sisters, dear, who live in service of the Rose. They do good works, feeding the unfortunate, tending to the sick, and teaching girls to read and to write.” And sometimes, she thinks ruefully, teaching them to stop looking at other girls.

“Is there a bad man there?” he asks anxiously, and she gives him a surprised look, tenderly brushing the hair from his forehead.

“Oh, no, lovey, there isn’t. They won’t turn away a man who needs their help, aye, but no men are allowed to stay there. Only the Friar may be there, but he’s a very good old man, and mostly just tends the roses.” He puts the collar of his shirt in his mouth, and she patiently takes it out.

“What does he look like?” Tommy asks finally, and she tilts her head at him.

“Well, he’s very old, as I said- he was old when I was there, and I still receive messages from one of the Sisters I met there, so he’s only gotten older still. His skin is very wrinkly and brown, and he has very small spectacles, like so,” and she makes tiny circles with her hands, peeking through them at him, but he doesn’t laugh the way she hopes. “And he has no beard and no hair at all, save for his great big eyebrows, which join up in the middle. He was a very kind man, as I recall.”

“Mm,” Tommy says distantly, pressing his cheek against her chest for a moment. “Diff’rent.”

“I suppose so,” she says cautiously, unsure of his meaning. “Is- is that the story you wanted, lovey?”

“Yes,” he says promptly, then, “no. I want more.”

“You want to know about the rose window, Tommy?” she asks, and he nods slowly, his tiny hand at his heart again. “Alright, my love. The rose window is made of colored glass, all joined up so clever to make one big glass, see? And it makes a picture of a rose, but not just _any_ rose. The Rose is the center of all things, as they speak it. The Rose is the Tower, at the middle and all around the world, aye, and all worlds, and all things. The Rose is inside every good thing, and inside ka. Inside good little boys,” she adds, and he makes a darling face at her, eyes and mouth all round as plates.

“Am I a good boy, Mama?” he asks, starstruck.

“Very much so, Tommy,” she promises, and he puts his face against her chest again, blushing. “The Rose is love, and goodness, and every lovely thing. It’s inside everything that is, and everything that will be, and everything that is and will be dwells inside of it.”

“Why?” he asks, baffled, and she shakes her head.

“I know not, lovey, only that it is so.” He puts his fingers in his mouth at that, and she patiently takes them out again. “You’ll eat your own fingers off, you will.”

“Shan’t,” he says dreamily, then frowns down at his lap, then at the window- then, as if tearing himself away from a sight far more interesting than the quiet sweeping of the street, he turns toward her, frowning still. “What about bad things?”

“What about them?” she asks, and he makes a soft, frustrated noise, rocking in her lap. “Don’t fret so, poppet. If you can’t think of the word, think a different word.”

“Bad things,” he repeats. “Bad men. Is it in- is it Rose in them?”

“Why, yes, love, for even the baddest of bad men was once a little boy, wasn’t he?” she asks, and he gapes at her, as if it’s the most horrifying thing she could have said- Verise sighs, realizing what a threat that must have sounded. “The Rose is inside of everything that is or was or will be, yes. Things that are sad, people who are bad or evil or wicked, are denying the Rose inside of them. That doesn’t mean it was never there, lovey.”

It’s a bit steep, she thinks, for a boy of four, but she supposes Abel would say it’s never too early to start children on their philosophies. Thomas gazes thoughtfully at the wall, his hand on his heart.

“D’want to be bad,” he says firmly, after a long enough silence that she thinks he may have gone a-wandering down some other path of thought.

“Well, no, lovey, and you aren’t,” she tells him, and he looks at her with an ocean’s depth of love, and she kisses his forehead again. “You’re a good boy, Tommy, my very good boy.”

He crows happily at that, snuggling into her arms.

They have four months left together- she does not know this- and he surprises her over the next four months, by asking her to tell him about the Rose again, his head resting over her heart, his hand resting over his. She tells him until he knows the story of it only a little less than he knows the story of the boy who is the sea.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Mr. Whitman, if you please,” Master Vannay says sternly, and Thomas looks around, startled, at the tutor, at the faces of the boys around him. “To the board, Thomas.”

Thomas is a good boy- not quite ten years old, no, but Alain’s already hit it, and their birthdays are close- and he does as he is told, as good boys must. He glances around, and Alain- lovely Alain, good and strong Alain, Alain who loves and helps him- is giving him a very worried look indeed. Roland and Jamie, who are quiet and sharp-eyed and obedient as well, are in the back of the class, a handful of rows past where Cuthbert’s been put- not because he’s not so naughty to need to be closer to the front and better watched, but because he loves the attention and acts naughtier still when he feels the class’s eyes.

Thomas and Alain, of course, sit right up front, for though neither of them are as naughty as all that, they are both easily distracted, and easily distracting.

Thomas glances at his desk, aye, and sure enough, he seems to have been doodling on his slate, and he can’t see what it is from there but there’s chalk on his fingers and shirt, besides.

 _You were wandering, Tommy_ , Alain sends him, eyes round over the anxious press of his mouth. _You were wandering somewhere frightening._

“Was I?” Thomas asks, and Alain winces at him.

“Alain, you will see me after class, boy,” Master Vannay says sharply. “The rule against chatting in my classroom extends to touching minds, as you will kindly remember.”

Thomas blinks at him, giving Master Vannay a sorrowful look. It wasn’t Alain’s fault he had to go a-chasing after his daft old Tommy.

Only Master Vannay looks very tired and old- older still and more tired than Thomas can remember him looking. Something in it worries Thomas, more than the way Vannay taps a long, wooden pointer at something on the board.

“Why don’t you translate for us, Thomas, since you seem not to need to _listen_ when I speak in class?” he snaps, and Thomas flinches a little at the sudden question, and a boy laughs- no, not one, three of them, boys who’ve laughed before, in this and other Whens. And just like that Thomas has a word, a name for it, for these memories and thoughts that come to him from himself.

Thomas brightens up a little, looking up at the board. Another boy snickers, and Master Vannay shoots that boy an irritated glare. Thomas fiddles with his bit of chalk, nervy and unsure, now. He knows that he knows what these words mean, but he also knows that he can’t remember where from. He licks his lips, giving Master Vannay a pleading look, which his tutor ignores. He doesn’t want to do it wrong, and make the man any more sad, no, but even if Alain knew the answer he wouldn’t be able to tell Thomas, because Master Vannay’s got his eyes, those of his face and of his mind, on him very strongly now.

Thomas screws his eyes shut for a moment, taking a deep breath. He knows that he knows this, for he knows that he’s heard it said, not just by Master Vannay, but by others, by people he knew and loved, people who knew and loved him, though he’s not sure now who.

“Correct action is… more good than knowledge,” Thomas says softly, and Master Vannay starts- glancing quickly at Alain, he thinks, to make sure that Alain’s not telling him what to say. “But in order of… doing good, we have to learn what is good?”

“Very close, Thomas,” Master Vannay says, but he doesn’t sound pleased. He sounds tired and tired, he does. “Correct action is _better_ than knowledge, but in order _to_ do what is right, we _must_ learn what is right.”

Thomas nods slowly, drinking this in. It rings in him, and he thinks it is a piece, aye, a very big piece of what he didn’t know he was looking for.

“That’s lovely,” he decides, and Master Vannay sighs.

“Well, it _is_ attributed to Charlemagne, boy,” he says. “Which you lot will be reading up on this week, so prepare yourselves,” he adds, directing this to the classroom before turning back to Thomas. “Alright, lad, write the corrected statement in the High Speech, then you can sit down again.”

“Yes, sai,” he says, happy to have gotten it mostly-right, at least. He raises his chalk to the large slate-board to start writing, and a lovely thought comes to him, and very nearly in what little he remembers of the ghost of his mother’s voice. He thinks: these words are Rose, and Rose is in them. And is that not just the grandest thing, that such a lovely thing can be said so long ago, and be true today? Is not truth a kind of love, aye, and a loveliness itself?

“-Thomas-”

And grander still (he can’t stop smiling up at the board, though he doesn’t know it yet) that they can be true for him! Why, he’s sure of it, just as he’s sure that he’s the good boy his Mama’d said, just as he’s sure that even in the baddest of bad men there still might be a touch of that Rose, that love, that truth. He can find that final door, that final key, that final lovely rightness, and _that_ is the truth. He can-

“Thomas?”

There is a hand on his shoulder, giving him something of a shake, and for a moment Thomas lingers, sunset through a glass rose, gold as every sun, safe as Mama’s arms, lovely as the sea, yes, lovely as the day and night skies, lovely as a boy with the shadow of a man, lovely as his love for all of them, oh love oh Gan oh-

“Thomas!” Master Vannay says, and he drops his arm, dazed. He blinks up at his tutor, then up at the large slate-board, and his heart sinks a little, for he really did mean to write the words upon it, only his hand, it seems, wanted to draw instead- a big rose, as big as he can make it. It’s still not, he thinks sadly, as big as the rose glass, and not as perfect as he sees in his mind, for he’d been using his weak right hand instead of the left he naturally uses to draw and write.

He sighs softly, hanging his head. “I cry your pardon, Master Vannay, I only- I did _mean_ to write it, but-”

“ _Just-_ ” Vannay’s voice is hard for the word, then he sighs again, defeated. “Just take a seat, Thomas.”

Thomas sits down at his seat, and a boy- a different boy, probably,  but he isn’t looking to see- laughs again, and Vannay doesn’t bother trying to stop him this time.

Thomas sits quiet at his desk, and tries to follow a little better, and mostly succeeds. Master Vannay doesn’t look at him again, though.

After the end of their lessons, before they start to move- gathering up all their things, and preparing to head outside for the half of their day that belongs to Cort- Master Vannay clears his throat, rapping the wooden pointer against the wall.

“You’re not to go to the fields today,” he says, and there isn’t even much of a startled murmur at that, for none of them have ever heard of or even imagined that there would be a day that Cort wouldn’t see them. “Return to your barracks or bandy yourselves about the castle, but there will not be afternoon lessons today.”

Many of the boys grumble and complain at that, but Thomas stays in his seat, watching Master Vannay straighten his scrolls and the few books he’s allowed to keep in their classroom.

“Alright, Tommy?” Roland asks him quietly, and he shakes his head.

“Later,” Thomas murmurs, waiting until he’s alone in the classroom with his teacher before he slowly wipes his slate and stows it away. He’s never seen Master Vannay look so sad, only-

-only that’s not precisely true, is it? He’s only never seen him this sad this When, but there have been others- other times, aye, Thomas at nine-near-ten, and isn’t there something nagging at him about today?

“Master Vannay?” Thomas asks softly, and Vannay puts his big, gnarled hand over his eyes. “Is… is everything alright?”

“Everything is fine, Thomas. Hurry on to be with your friends, now,” he murmurs.

Thomas fidgets with the corner of his desk, dreading the question before it passes his lips, dreading the answer. He’s never asked before, as far as he knows. He doesn’t want to know the answer.

“Is… is Cort alright?” he asks quietly.

“Your teacher is in good health, young man, surely that-” Vannay starts, and his voice breaks slightly as he gives Thomas a small, painful smile. “Your concern is touching, sweet boy, but Cort is fine. He just… needed today to take care of some things.”

“Are you going to go see him?” Thomas asks, anxiety pressing against the back of his breastbone. “Is- is anyone else going to be with him today, sai?”

Vannay gives him a curious look, before his eyes turn sad again. “I’m afraid my old friend would like to be alone today, Thomas.”

A name comes to him, that night, watching Roland in the dinnerhall- wasn’t she in love with him? Hadn’t she been proposed to be his bride, at one point?- but no amount of waiting brings a little girl named Aileen Ritter to the castle, and eventually he stops hoping.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Roland carries David in his arms- not David, no, for the part of him that was a hawk and flew freely under the sun is no more, and the thing in Roland’s hands is a sad tangle of feathers and meat. Thomas gently touches Roland’s shoulder, and his friend- no longer a boy but a man, by most reckonings- turns to give him a taut, painful smile.

“Hile, gunslinger,” Thomas says quietly. “Hile, Roland.”

"Well-met, Thomas and Jamie,” Roland replies, and Thomas knows there are people here, people looking, but he carefully and delicately takes Jamie’s hand in his, and draws in a breath.

“You oughtn’t have used David so,” Thomas says, barely above a whisper, and Roland doesn’t respond verbally, the feeling of his _khef_ \- a brief, clinical thing, half lightning, half a high and lonely wind- reaches tentatively out and ebbs just as quickly away. He doesn’t need to go far to know how deeply Thomas loves him, or how hurt and disappointed he is.

“You don’t understand. There _was_ no other way,” Roland says flatly, as if he can deny the guilt he feels, as if he can deny that he betrayed a friend today.

“If you couldn’t do it without David, then you shouldn’t had done it, aye?” Thomas says, and Roland bristles at him. “Could be that doing it costs more than not, then?”

“You don’t understand,” Roland repeats, then, his voice lowering, as if worried they’ll be overheard, “I need to be a gunslinger, a man of the castle, Thomas. I need- it’s the magician, Marten, he-”

The shape of something turns in Thomas’s head as Roland tries to explain, and he sighs deeply, before reaching out and taking Roland’s shoulder again, pressing a kiss against Roland’s cheek.

“Seems as though dealing with this situation is the work of another, lovey,” Thomas says sadly. “Seems like this wasn’t your riddle to solve, Ro.”

“Solve it I will, though,” Roland says, and Thomas watches him go.

“He will not,” Jamie says, very quietly.

“Ah, no, I don’t think he will,” Thomas agrees, then, because the name is familiar, somewhere: “We have a court magician, Jay? Since when has Gilead had a magician?”

“Four years or so, though there was another one when we were very small,” Jamie says curiously, looking at him. “Discussed this.”

“Oh, have we?” Thomas thinks for a moment that stretches into ten; enough time that he is trailing along behind Jamie into the Allgood quarters by the time he comes back to himself.

He glances up, mildly surprised, when he crosses the threshold and is greeted by Cuthbert's mother, Lavinia.

“Hello, Jamie dear. Oh, are we having you for dinner, Thomas?” she asks, and he blinks at her until she gives his arm a gentle pat. “Why don't you stay, then?”

“Cuthbert's with Roland,” Thomas says worriedly, and she laughs good-naturedly at that.

“Ah, when is he not? That's alright, Thomas, you can stay in Jamie's room and decide if you'll be staying for dinner when you're ready to think on it.” Thomas shoots Jamie a look, but nothing seems amiss. Nevertheless, something nags at him, even as Jamie leads him into the small but private bedroom he’s had in the Allgood quarters for the past few years now.

Thomas has seen it before, but he still drinks it in- Jamie’s wardrobe, one door open to show neatly folded and stacked clothing. A few simple wall hangings, though they mostly seem to have been chosen by Cuthbert’s mother. A narrow bed against one corner, with a soft pillow- softer than Thomas, with his unhappily-joined neck bones, can bear to sleep on. A writing-desk with a handful of books on it.

And, of course, perhaps a dozen drawings- some on small scraps of parchment, some on great rolls that had been meant for other uses- that Thomas has given him over the years. Here a cat who’d reminded Thomas of Cuthbert, here a great pirate-galley plowing through stylized waves, here a number of little birds and insects who’d ventured close enough for Thomas to draw them. A number of drawings of Jamie, though- Jamie with Alain and Roland, Jamie and Bert aiming their guns, Jamie smiling alone, Jamie gazing outward, Jamie’s hands, holding the hands Thomas knows he’ll one day have.

Jamie catches him looking and smiles. “Favorite one.”

“Is it?” Thomas asks, and he gives Thomas’s hand a squeeze.

“You never draw yourself in them, it’s all I’ve got,” he says quietly, and Thomas breathes out a sigh. It’s a very different room from the impersonal barracks that they spend most of their time in, but it feels very… homelike, perhaps. Thomas can’t imagine the last time he felt like this in the room where his father keeps him during the holidays and days of rest; all of the books and drawings and tools he likes to keep nearby are safe in a locked trunk in his own barracks-room.

“I’m afraid that if I try to draw myself it’ll be his face, not mine,” he murmurs, and Jamie nods, pressing a thumb into the softness between Thomas’s forefinger and thumb- a warning, a very small one, to let him know that they’re coming too close to something Jamie can’t bear, can’t bear to talk about. Thomas brings his hand to his lips without thinking, presses a soft kiss to each finger once he realizes that he’s got it.

“Jamie?” he asks, and his lovely Jamie- his _beautiful_ Jamie, he realizes with a pang of memory, his absolutely stunning Jamie, the pink-purple scattering of light on a windy sea at sunrise, the cool tickle of clear water dotted with pearlescent foam as the tide rushes to kiss his ankles, swimming in the waters of a gently rolling bay and letting a wave tumble over his head, engulfing him, surrounding him- his lovely Jamie takes Thomas’s big, clumsy hand in both of his, and kisses Thomas’s knuckles in reply.

Thomas is aware that he croons happily at him: a soft, wordless noise as he picks Jamie up, twirls him thrice around the room to the sound of Jamie’s gentle laughter before his knees and elbows start to threaten. He gently deposits the both of them on the bed, flopping half-off of Jamie’s lap like a heavy, bony blanket, thinks again of the sea- leaping into clean blue waters from a height, the dance of tiny shells and bits of sand in the surf, the taste of salt on his lips.

“We had it once,” Thomas murmurs against Jamie’s side, and Jamie’s fingers stroke encouragingly through his hair, and Jamie’s soft, happy laugh subsides into a soft, happy sigh. “Had all of it once, I know we did. A life by the sea, and the waters, and the waters, Jay.”

“Do you say so, Tommy?” Jamie asks, and Thomas sits up, heart thrumming with excitement.

“Aye, I do, I say so, Jamie, for I mean to see that we have it again, in this life if we’re lucky, in another if we’re less so,” he promises, and Jamie laughs again, holds Thomas’s face in his hands, draws him close for a kiss, his mouth parted in a gentle invitation.

Thomas draws in a soft, shaking breath as soon as they part, eyes half-closed as he commits this as best as he can to memory- this first kiss, this light, this air, the safety of the room, the safety of Jamie’s hands, the sureness of their love, the sureness of a future, of a hope for a future. He wants to carry this moment into the next time, and the next, and the next, for however long it may take before he breaks whatever curse or geas it is that keeps him a-spinning on this old wheel.

“Alright, Tommy?” Jamie asks, and Thomas looks up at him, a smile spreading across his face.

“I just want to forever remember how dearly I love you, Jamie,” he says truthfully, and Jamie blushes across his perfectly-sculpted nose and cheekbones. Thomas grins a little at him when he peeks at Thomas again. “I love you _so_ dearly, Jay.”

“Is that right, then?” Jamie teases, and Thomas moves closer, means to say more, so he does, only just then there’s a gentle, discreet knock on Jamie’s bedroom door.

“It’s me, boys,” Lavinia Allgood calls through the door. “Just wondering, as it might be, if you’d like to stay with us tonight, Thomas, for I’m sure there’s no imposition, and I know you’ve had an exciting day?”

It strikes Thomas that she means _Roland_ , that Roland bested Cort and won his guns today, and not this. Thomas has to put his hand over his mouth to prevent a giggle from escaping as he stands up from Jamie’s bed.

“That does sound very lovely, lady-sai, only-” Thomas trails off, his mind darting like a fish, aye, small and swift and silver, needling through the dark waters. Something that had struck him as odd, before. Something that had struck a nerve of worry, before. Something that hadn’t felt right today-

-he knows that he is gazing at the many birds and trundling beetles and delicate flies he drew for Jamie once, and that his eyes are rapt on the large drawing of what had been a very friendly crow that afternoon, but something in it now turns his mind towards- towards-

“Thomas, are you well?” Lavinia asks softly, her hands on his shoulders, drawing his attention briefly. When had she come in? Jamie looks at him from behind her, eyes dark with worry. “Thomas, can you hear me, dear?”

“Four years,” Thomas murmurs, searching her face before looking back at the bird. “Four years, but I don’t remember? If I- _how_ is it I-?”

“Why don’t we just have you stay the night, then?” she asks gently. “Until you feel a little better, Tommy, I’d hate to think of what might happen if you took a fall in this state.”

“Every time,” Thomas says slowly, his mouth feeling distant from him, numb. “Every time. Why does he do it? Because of _that_ man, aye, because he needs to face him _as_ a man. I should know this very well. I should _remember_ this very well. Why don’t I…”

“Tommy?” Jamie asks him, and Thomas puts a hand over his heart, where he knows a rose will lay-lays-has lain, before gently taking Cuthbert’s mother’s hand.

“I thank you very kindly for your offer, lady-sai, but I’m afraid I must- I must go now,” Thomas says, stepping back. “I just- yes, I just recalled that I have something very- very important I must do now.”

“Surely you might wait-” Lavinia says, startling slightly, but Thomas is already leaving, for he feels very sure now that there isn’t much time to do this once Roland wins his guns.

He walks- lets his feet lead him, as they often do, down paths of memory- past doors to homes he’s visited and doors he’s never opened.

He tells himself quite sternly: you’ve known it once, and you must know it still, just as you know the paths to many places, many doors, many first-time meetings. You have known it once, and now you’re in need of it again, and no matter that it’s been taken from you, not just this time but other times, so far back that you can’t remember When you knew it.

This part of the castle is unfamiliar to Thomas; even the light of the torches hung on the walls feels thin and weak.

Here a door, curiously carved. He has no small interest in seeing it closer, for it looks very wild and a-twisted, oh, all hands and arms grasping at one another, at something that bobs up to the surface of the fine-grained and blood-dark wood-

Thomas shakes himself and goes. He has no time, and he suspects that the door is here to distract him, aye. He steps cautiously down the hall, wrinkling his nose- the torches burn with a curiously familiar spiced smoke, something he knows, something he's smelled before. It comes to him in a slow and pondering crawl that this is the smell of danger, of death, of many dangers and many deaths.

“Not very nice, are we, magician-sai?” Thomas muses. He gives his head another shake, for he thinks he’s meant to remember, he thinks he’s meant to stop and be afraid-

-and he is afraid, isn’t he?

“Oh, no more than usual,” he answers himself, his tongue curiously heavy in his mouth. The walls sway around him and he reaches out a hand to steady himself, touches only air as the hallway turns. His head aches dreadfully. Why was he speaking aloud, just now?

He looks blearily down the hallway. This part of the castle is unfamiliar to him; even the light of the torches hung on the walls feels thin and weak.

 _Like the yolks of crows’ eggs, gone off and dashed against rocks below forgotten nests_ , he thinks, and surely the weak, yellowy light of the torches is hanging round and wet against the walls behind the licking flames on the torches.

He glances aside. Here a door, curiously carved. It is very interesting indeed, for it looks very wild and a-twisted, must have taken some artisan months to make all those hands and arms grasping at one another, grasping at something that bobs up to the surface of the fine-grained and blood-dark wood-

Thomas shakes himself and goes. He is running out of time, and he suspects that the door is here to distract him, aye. He steps cautiously down the hall, wrinkling his nose- the torches burn with a curiously familiar spiced smoke, something he knows intimately, something he’s smelled before. It comes to him in an angry burst of memory: this is the smell of danger, of death, of many dangers and many deaths.

“How curious, how very like-” he muses slowly. How very like _whom_? He gives his head another shake, for he thinks he’s meant to remember, he thinks he’s meant to stop and be afraid-

-and he is afraid, isn’t he?

“Not nearly as much as _you_ should be,” he answers himself, his tongue curiously heavy in his mouth. The walls sway around him and he reaches out a hand to steady himself, touches only air as the hallway turns. His head aches dreadfully. Why was he speaking aloud, just now?

Thomas looks down the hallway, feeling drunk, and something in his head is trying to be heard, aye, and it’s the clink of brass on brass, it’s the smooth burnt-powder taste of spent shells, it’s the motion of his fingers as he reloads. He can’t quite hear it yet, but he feels quite sure, now, that feeling it at all, hearing it at all, is warning enough.

 _A gunslinger is never defenseless_. Did Cort tell him that, once? He feels sure that it must be true, and he may be the only person alive who knows him to be one, but he knows, sure enough, that he is.

Thomas closes his eyes to the hallway, for he suspects that he cannot trust them, not just now. He bares his teeth, breathing through his mouth.

“Don’t think you should feel so clever, pulling the trick that’s been pulled before,” Thomas says, and he _knows_ the sound of the laughter that rings breathlessly in reply.

“And I suppose that you feel clever yourself, then?” the man replies, The Man, the only man there’s ever been. Thomas breaks into a run, eyes still closed. “You’ll never catch me, Tommy-boy, not without a sacrifice, not without-”

And it strikes Thomas, lightning-and-a-high-wind clear, clear as obedience, clear as loyalty betrayed: a hawk in the grass, aye, and a bullet through his love’s skull, and a boy’s distant voice falling through the darkness, a victory cut short, a door to nowhere in a chilly-dark forest, and roses, roses, all Rose, everything Rose.

Thomas gropes blindly, pulling the collar of his shirt open as he runs. He puts his right hand to his mouth and bites down, his mouth filling with blood, and he slaps his hand to his heart, under the loosened collar of his shirt, the blood hot and sticky on his skin, and with one shaking finger draws it- wobbly, aye, and not near so fine as the tattoo he will one day have there, but a rose all the same, _the_ Rose.

He thrusts his left hand out and catches an upper arm, cloaked in a heavy robe, and he opens his eyes, his teeth bared now in a grin.

The Man is all in black.

“You’re _nicked_ , you are,” he pants, and the Man grins back at him. Thomas does not stop smiling, for all that he realizes that this man must have wanted it to be so. His chin is slick with blood, and the Man’s lips are full, as plump and red as the heart of a freshly-killed rabbit.

Thomas looks at him intently; in a way, the face of the man- seen clearly and in proper light for the first time, maybe ever- is an uneasy disappointment. It is handsome enough, in the vaguely handsome way of Roland’s face, perhaps. His hair is black and a little past his jaw, with a wave to it that suggests just a hint of a sea-wind. His forehead is high, his nose nondescript, his eyes brilliant and dark against the pallor of his face.

The mouth Thomas does not linger on, for he knows it very well.

“Well-now, hell-now!” the man says brightly. “What a grave and unforeseen circumstance I in no way planned for, eh? I admire you, gunslinger, for this progress you have made!”

Thomas smiles thinly, and high and away, past the mists of many Whens: _my first thought was, he lied in every word_.

“I thought you’d be taller,” Thomas says softly. “Shall I call you Marten, then? For I know your face, sure enough, but not by that name.”

“Indeed? And there will be many names after this, and there were many names before. Choose what suits your fancy, Tommy-boy,” he says, and Thomas licks blood from his lower lip. Marten, he thinks, just because it’s easiest-

“Marten it is, boy,” the man replies, grinning wickedly. “And now I think-”

“Black’s not your color,” Thomas says, blinking. “Doesn’t suit your complexion, Marten.”

“And I suppose you think blue suits better, do you?” Marten asks, and Thomas does not answer, his heart hammering in his chest. “You have caught me, after all. Shall I answer the questions in your heart, Tommy-boy?”

“You can see them, clear as I see you,” Thomas says, and Marten titters at him, a laugh like the sound of a flock of birds at flight.

“Yes, but you must still _ask_.”

“Some game,” Thomas says, and Marten’s mouth is that dreadful smile again.

“It’s always been a game,” he purrs. “It will always be a game, after all.”

Thomas lets out a soft breath, his hand cramping from holding onto Marten’s arm. It should be bruising- aye, it must be- but the man makes no sign that it hurts him at all. He merely seems amused- inconvenienced at worst, but only because he allows himself to be.

“I have questions,” Thomas says. “I have- I have so many questions, aye, many and many that I must ask-”

“Ah,” Marten says, his tone mocking. “Sorry, champ, but that’s the nature of this jolly little play, isn’t it? It must be a sacrifice to get what you want, yes- the love and trust of a child will get you the universe, or as much as a puny mortal mind can see of it- but a blood sacrifice, Thomas, one as small as this? Well, that gets you three questions, son, just the three.”

Thomas gives Marten an even look, for it wasn’t just the blood of his hand, no, but his heart- his life- everything he is and will be, now and next time, in the service of that rosy goodness, the Rose inside of him, the rightness that he seeks to protect. And for a moment, he thinks he sees Marten flinch away from him, as if he _could_ be afraid of the bleeding fifteen-year-old before him.

“Tick-tock, tick-tock, as a once and future friend likes to say,” Marten tells him, mocking again. “You haven’t got forever, old boy.”

Thomas draws in a breath, rallying with the memory of Jamie-today, Jamie-one-day, a life at the seaside, a life together, and the first question tumbles unbidden and unwise, from a mouth as disobedient as the rest of him: “Who is it that kills him? Whose bullet, at that last battle?”

Marten’s smile is cruel, familiar. “It is a name that you will learn again, and for now is quite unknown. Your dear Jamie- when it is not _your_ gun, when it is not his own hand- is killed by General Grissom’s rifle, sniped at a distance.”

Thomas winces at the thought-memory-fear of killing Jamie himself, of Jamie taking his own life, and Marten laughs again, soft and near.

“The truth hurts, doesn’t it? ‘Tis why so few friends and lovers dare speak it to one another, lad. In its core it is as sharp and cruel as any knife. You would have preferred I never mention it, that you’d never remember your own wickedness and sin-”

“The truth,” Thomas says, gulping in air. “Is the truth. Is only itself. And a knife might feed and carve and shape as well as wound, too.”

“As you say,” Marten says, sounding unimpressed. “The second of your questions, then?”

Thomas watches his face for a moment, his thoughts swirling. How many times has he seen this General Grissom’s bullet fly through Jamie’s skull? Too many, too many, but he thinks he sees the shape of the years before it, the shape of all the flame and wandering-dark between now and that last day. Thomas looks down at his own hand, at the flash of blood that looks so very like the mark on Jamie’s hand, and it occurs to Thomas that it’s more blood than he thought it would be, and that the swirling of his thoughts might indeed be related, at least a little, to its loss.

“How,” he says, carefully as he can. “How does this- this general, as you say- how does he find us, and know how to draw us, and kill us all, at the end, there?”

“Alas!” Marten laughs again, and there is a coolness nearby, and it is very like the feel of Marten’s face against his throat, like the feel of his chest over Thomas’s chest, the feel of his hands on Thomas’s knees. He has to blink to be sure that this is not so.

“I’m afraid there, lad, you were never and will never be meant to escape or to win! For the dear General possesses the Eye of Sapphire- no mere seeing-ball or weather-glass this, but a true Bend, and every movement you and your little pack of survivors makes is seen, will be seen, will be understood, until there is nothing, until there is only that last day, again and again, for it can see through the plane of the mind, and it can see the future, those parts of it that are hammered into being on the anvil of ka.”

Thomas exhales, realizing he’d been holding it. Marten’s hand- oh, cold, oh unloved-death, oh- strokes down his cheek. “You see that there is no hope for you, for the little love you muster in your heart for that boy? You cannot run where the General won’t follow, and you will be followed, hunted, _watched_ , until that last and dying day.”

A dry sob catches in Thomas’s throat, and another, before he can speak again. “I- I-”

“Yes?” Marten asks hungrily.

“I have- one more question, I think,” Thomas gasps, and Marten’s voice becomes a low menace against Thomas’s ear. _He’s bitten it off, before_ , Thomas thinks, and sobs again. There really is only one question that matters.

“Ask me, then.”

“ _What am I doing wrong?_ ” Thomas asks, tears streaming down his face. “What am I doing wrong, why does it always happen, why does it happen all these same and different ways, what am I _doing_ , what am I doing _so_ wrong that-”

“Ahaha, no, gunslinger,” Marten says, shushing him with a finger to his mouth, and chuckling softly as Thomas jerks his head away from his touch. “That’s the game of it, Tommy-boy, that’s why it’s _such_ a laughable game. All the suffering you’ve done, all the laboring toward making even the smallest change- it was never your quest, it was never your task. You can never _be_ good enough, you can never _do_ good enough, for the one who is judged- every time, Thomas, every single time- fails, and fails, and never learns. For him, there is no understanding, no flash of intuition or hope or inspiration. He fails again and again and again, and nothing you ever do will be enough to stop it.”

Thomas couldn’t ask another even if he wanted to; he is weeping, his chest and throat aching with it, his eyes burning with tears. Marten’s hand wraps around his, fingers digging cruelly into the bite on his hand, and Thomas lets out a hitching cry, sagging against Marten’s front. There is an icy press- a mouth against his throat, aye, it puts him in mind of some faraway battle-place, of a faraway office full of candlelight, of having his back to the wall of one of the upstairs classrooms, of cold hands gripping onto his shoulders, his knees, the back of his neck.

“Perhaps that wasn’t the only thing you wanted, hm? This isn’t the first time, in this place,” Marten murmurs into his skin, and Thomas sucks in a great breath of air, shaking terribly.

“Stop it, or- or I’ll-” he stammers, and the Man laughs.

“Or what, you’ll scream? You’ve screamed before, Tommy. No one ever comes. They can tell it’s you by the sound of your voice, little gun, they know it’s nothing worth their time when you do,” he says softly, pressing against Thomas’s front, one cold hand going up into his hair. “I’m the only one who ever and always finds you, surely you know this, surely you remember-”

Thomas doesn’t remember- he can’t remember anything, he can’t think at all, he only knows that he wants to go away, he wants to curl up in some clean green place, he wants to be away and alone and not think about this, _no_ , he doesn’t want to see the flicker of light in Marten’s eyes, he doesn’t want to feel that _thing_ grow and press into his hip, he doesn’t want to feel those hands moving on his body, _no_ , he does _not_.

It is not so difficult to go away, he thinks-he hopes-he pleads, not so difficult to wander away now, to be barefoot and small in the fresh green grass - _a gust of warm, dry air against his stomach, a gust of cold, humid air against his stomach, no_ \- to be surrounded by the crenellated battlements of the outer walls and to run his fingers down along the ancient stones and to feel the mortar crumble under his fingertips - _no, flat on his back, no, his right hand swollen and bleeding onto the floor, his left hand held in a crushing grip, no_ \- to be happily alone, safely alone, the skies overhead changing, daysky-nightsky-stormsky, and behind and around him the sea, the safety of the sea, the danger of the sea, all at once, everything together.

He is very cold, he thinks, and he is shaking, and there is a weight on him, aye, a cold weight. He wants to wake up, he thinks, he wants to wake up and go back, go to where- well, not where it’s safe, there’s never been a safe place, but surely somewhere less dark, surely somewhere he can be near his Jamie. Thomas tries to prop himself up on his elbows, and there is a soft, mocking chuckle nearby.

“And now, sleep, I think. Don’t you agree?” Marten asks, and Thomas hears himself let out a soft whine, shaking his head. “Enough of that, little man. We’ll be seeing each other again soon enough.”

Thomas does not know if there is a time of sleeping. He wakes up to an empty hallway, not one familiar to him, no, but not a strange one, either. His hand still hurts quite badly but his mouth and chin and hand no longer feel wet. A little sticky, though, perhaps.

And there is no Marten. Might have never been, if not for the fact that Thomas can remember everything of their first and final conversation, if not for the fact that Thomas feels weak and hollow and all cried-out, if not for the fact that Thomas feels as though he’s been screaming, if not for the fact that he has to clumsily button his jeans closed and tuck his shirt back in one-handed.

 _Back, I think_ , he thinks but cannot say, for his mouth is dry as a bone, and his throat is all hot and raw, and closes against the words besides. He follows his feet easier, though, and a snippet of song- from his mother’s lips, from the echoes of a faraway convent, from the laughing mockery of Sometimes-Marten- comes to him.

- _take heart with grace, thy steps retrace, poor wandering one!_ -

And after a time even that thought sinks into the blood-churned mud, and all he can think of to keep his feet moving is Jamie, his face and hands and hair, his eyes and his voice and his smile, Jamie-Jamie-Jamie-Jay-Jamiejamiejamie-

It is a _familiar_ door. He can’t make his hand into a fist but he beats the heel of his palm against it anyway, finding enough of his voice to call inside, “Is Tommy, is only Tommy, only please it’s Tommy-”

“Why, Thomas, thank goodness you’re-” Lavinia Allgood says, opening the door, and then her eyes-so-lovely widen, her brown face going pale as she sees him. “ _Thomas!_ Sweetheart, what-”

“I caught him,” he tries to say, collapsing against her as she pulls her arms around him, and he tries to speak but cannot, now, and she feels his forehead with her hand, and calls for Robert to come quick, and who a Robert is he surely can’t remember.

And this time he sleeps, aye, for he feels he’s quite earned it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Thomas wakes up in a bed- good! Encouraging!- and his arm is up, his hand is being held, and at first that seems good, too. Then he realizes that what he feels is a bandage, being wound around it, and at that he cries out, tries to pull away, for he is still in Gilead, and the thing he fears and hates most about Gilead, aye, is surely Gilead’s doctor.

“ _Please_ be still, Thomas,” a voice says- a man, yes, and familiar as well, but not Dr. DeCurry, and he goes limp against the bed, trembling. “There you go. It may scar, young man, but there doesn’t seem to be an infection, and you are unlikely to lose the use of it.”

Thomas opens his eyes, and Master Vannay smiles weakly down at him.

“You gave the Lady Allgood a terrible fright, you know.”

“Did?” Thomas asks hoarsely, and Vannay tucks the bandage into itself, gently lays the hand down at Thomas’s side. Thomas is dreadfully aware that he’s wearing unfamiliar clothes, that he feels like he might not be able to walk. “I don’t…” He swallows, and Vannay pours from a small carafe into a small cup, and supports his head a little to allow him to sip at it.

“You don’t remember?” Vannay asks.

Thomas frowns. He does remember, aye, but he can’t make the connection between leaving his palaver with Marten and fainting in Cuthbert’s mother’s arms. Vannay puts the cup and the carafe back down.

“What _do_ you remember, Thomas?”

“Left Jamie an’ Lady Allgood, before supper, after Roland-”

Vannay winces, waving a hand. “Yes, boy, then what?”

“Walked.” Thomas wrinkles his nose. “Caught the Man- caught Marten-” And then he nearly sits up, though it hurts his stomach and his head to do so. “Is he in the castle? _Is he still_ -”

“No, no, no,” Vannay says soothingly, gently putting his hands on Thomas’s shoulders. “No, lad, he’s not here, not anymore, you’re safe.”

Thomas almost cries with relief, sniffling a little. “Well… I caught him up, and- he-”

Thomas hesitates, looking up at his tutor, and surely he can hear Marten laughing still, _because no one will ever believe you_ , and he lowers his eyes.

“He’s the one who- who bit you, lad?” Vannay prompts, his voice soft as his eyes roam Thomas’s face before glancing significantly at his hand.

“No, I was- I had to do it, to shed blood, for a- a sacrifice, he said-” Thomas mumbles, and Vannay draws in a sharp breath. “And then… he had to answer my questions, and he did. Wasn’t more’n half one hour, was even less that, for I only asked the three. And then he said I was to sleep, and I don’t… I don’t know if I did… only I woke up and felt dreadful, so I did. And Cuthbert’s mother said I could come for dinner, and I thought perhaps they were still eating, and I didn’t want to go as far as the dining hall.”

When he looks again, old Vannay’s eyes are very intent on him, and he looks away, face hot. He thinks he knows the room he’s in, though it’s not his barracks or the room in his father’s house, or even Jamie’s rooms.

“Thomas,” Vannay says softly. “What we know is this: After Roland bested Cort, you went with young Jamie to Cuthbert’s home, though he was not with you. You left in a state of great distraction, and Lavinia and Robert Allgood were very worried for you, as was Jamie and Cuthbert, after he came home that night. And then, Thomas, you simply… weren’t _in_ the castle. Alain and Cuthbert had to leave the next morning, along with Roland, on a sudden mission-”

“Ahh,” Thomas sighs, and Vannay tilts his head quizzically at him, but continues on.

“-but Alain was _very_ distressed, Thomas, for he couldn’t feel you anywhere nearby. Marten Broadcloak fled the castle soon after they left, and at first it was assumed that he feared action by Steven Deschain, and then… and then you _stayed_ missing, Thomas, and we began to fear that he’d fled after… after doing something unforgivable to you.”

Thomas blinks at him, dumbfounded, and Vannay puts a hand over his shoulder.

“We started to think you were dead, boy. Thomas, more than three days passed between the time you left the Allgood home and the time you returned.”

Thomas nearly sits up again. “But- Jamie, he doesn’t- he doesn’t think, still, I’m- I’m alive, though, does- does he know?” Thomas’s throat catches on itself, and he starts coughing too heavily to speak.

“Of course, Thomas,” Vannay scolds gently, pressing him back onto the bed and refilling the cup of water. “Drink and listen, boy. Jamie is just outside the door, young man. You’re in Cuthbert’s room, Thomas, we didn’t want to move you.”

Thomas sips his water, eyes downcast so he doesn’t have to look at Vannay’s face when he asks, “But- you didn’t- you didn’t let the doctor to see me, though, did- did you, sai?”

Vannay’s voice is very firm. “He’s _not_ allowed in this home, young man. It’s been only- perhaps nine hours, I should say, between your reappearance and now. I have been able to check in on you, for you weren’t hurt more than your hand, and seemed only to be dehydrated and starving when you’d come.”

“Don’t feel hungry,” Thomas mumbles.

“Lavinia has made a point of bringing you some warm soups,” Vannay says. “You were a little bit awake, here and there, though clearly not quite awake enough to remember that.”

Thomas looks up at Vannay then, his lower lip trembling. “Thankee, Master Vannay, for- for taking care of me.”

Vannay blinks at him, before reaching out with a shaking hand and patting Thomas’s head. “You gave all of us a scare, Thomas.”

“Aye, seems I did,” Thomas agrees. Vannay stands again.

“I should be off, now- alas! You’ll be missing today’s classes, and likely tomorrow’s, which will bring you out to a solid five days of missed lessons that I expect you to make up, Thomas. I will extend the news of your continued good health to your ka-tel.”

He moves toward the door, then pauses, glancing at Thomas. “What questions, Thomas?”

“Mm?”

“What questions did you ask Marten?” he asks. “What questions would you have, that would require a… a blood sacrifice?”

Thomas opens his mouth, closes it. He licks his lower lip, expecting to taste blood or salt and tasting neither.

“I think… I think…” He trails off, for something Marten’d said does strike out at him, aye- not the part where he expects Thomas to just give up, to just lie over and let someone else’s failed quest keep things in this inglorious and painful loop, no, but before that, when he was still laughing at Thomas for thinking he could save his Jamie, save his friends.

“Master Vannay?” he asks distantly, looking at Cuthbert’s walls. He can see now that it’s Bert’s room, aye, because he recognizes the drawing he made of Bert that’s been tacked up, Bert- as requested- dressed in very fine clothing, kicking the very skull off Death himself.

“Yes, lad?” Vannay asks quietly.

“Is there a… a scroll, perhaps, or even a book if it’s- if it’s alright,” he adds anxiously, glancing over at him. “One that is about… a seeing-glass, I suppose, called a Bend?”

“Why, yes, Thomas, there are a number of those,” Vannay says, his face unreadable. “Would- would you like me to bring you some while you convalesce, then?”

“Oh, no, sai, just while I’m getting better,” Thomas says, and Vannay sighs at him.

“Only if you also promise to take this time to practice your language arts, son,” he says. “Alright. I’ll tell Jamie he can come in and see you, then?”

“Oh, yes,” Thomas says. Jamie is at his side as soon as Master Vannay opens the door, and as soon as it’s closed again Jamie is on the bed, in his lap, arms around his neck.

“Don’t,” Jamie says into his chest, and Thomas holds onto him, relief and guilt and simple gladness to hold him all rolled together. “Don’t do that again, Tommy. Don’t… don’t do that. Don’t go away again.”

“Won’t try to, no,” Thomas agrees sleepily, burying his face against Jamie’s hair. “Cry pardon, Jamie, for I didn’t… I didn’t mean to be gone at all, you know.”

“I know, I know, I know,” Jamie murmurs against him. “Don’t do it, Tommy. Just… stay. Stay put.”

“Ah, I will, for you’ve got me,” Thomas says, and Jamie makes a soft noise against him. It seems like a very good idea to take a nap, now, just a small one, and it’s ever so nice to fall asleep with Jamie in his arms, and he never feels safer than when he does, either.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He’s learned all he can of what Master Vannay’s library holds, on the subject of the Bends o’ the Rainbow- a small enough selection, sadly, that he has time to memorize much of it, and make himself copies of everything- by the time Roland returns pink-sick, and Alain and Cuthbert come home clouded and chained with new grief. Thomas leaves Cuthbert’s home for the first time in months- for, it seems, he finds himself shaking and all a-jitter whenever he starts down a hallway, sure that he’ll see the door again, smell the smoke again, and be lost for even longer.

He does, by way of thanks, leave Cuthbert a new drawing on a fresh parchment- Cuthbert in courtly wear, sitting astride a magnificent lion with a gun in each hand. He’d intended to draw a battle around them and lost interest in it, and so most of the drawing is surrounded with interesting flowers that Thomas has seen- though, to be fair, some poppies do sprout up from a gore-filled ribcage.

Alain and Cuthbert are sitting glum about the hallway near Roland’s room- Alain so worried and tired that Thomas and Jamie are almost upon them before he perks up a little, noticing the feel of their minds before he sees them.

Something in Thomas eases down to a soft murmur, at being held by Alain and Bert, at folding his arms around them and just holding them in return.

“You both got taller,” he says, after finally letting them go.

“You rogue, we thought you’d _died_ ,” Cuthbert says roughly, grinning faintly despite the threatening shimmer of tears in his lovely eyes. “That or simply run off to join some band of travellers, right, Al?”

“Oh, without Jamie, too?” Thomas protests, and they both shoot him small, wet smiles. “I wouldn’t do that, no.”

“We know, Tommy,” Alain says, looking over the two of them.

“Is Roland inside?” Jamie asks, and Alain sighs.

“Well- yes. And no.”

Thomas sits on the floor, and Jamie immediately sits in his lap, so that they both face their long-missed ka-mates. After only a few seconds, Alain and Cuthbert sit, too, and tell the pair of them a story that Thomas knows, aye, knows and remembers.

It takes a decent stretch of time- though Thomas knows, he thinks, that they don’t tell him _all_ , either out of embarrassment and resentment, or out of a sense of private, shared secrecy. And they leave out some details about the pink-sickness that Roland is carrying, though that may be due to simply not remembering or knowing this time. Alain watches Thomas, watches him ponder these things, lining them up with what he remembers or might remember of past Whens.

“Is it very… very similar, to what you remember?” he asks, and Thomas has to sigh and say that it is, for he’s never known very much, and only knows that his jumbling mind has much to say on the subject, and only some of it relevant to this time-and-now.

“Seems a bit inconvenient, though, that you couldn’t remember this sort of thing _before_ anyone died over it,” Cuthbert says tightly, and Thomas puts his hand on his knee and gives it a small, tentative pat.

“Aye, I think that’s because the person who might prevent these messes is-”

Thomas trails off, then sighs heavily. “-is the only person who I’ve never seen die, aye, not once.”

It’s not a comfortable subject, but Alain and Cuthbert take his meaning immediately, glancing significantly at the door to Roland’s chambers. Thomas puts his mouth against the top of Jamie’s head, sighing a bit.

“We’ll have to start now,” he murmurs. “For there’s still always a chance it’s not too late, for us and for him. We should speak with him now, though.”

“Good luck to you then, Tommy,” Cuthbert mutters. “For I’ve- hey, now, old boy!”

For Thomas has gently deposited Jamie to the floor with a light kiss, and is striding to the door with a purpose.

“Thomas, it’s a painful and dangerous mood,” Alain says calmly, though his face shines worry up at him. “I think we should respect Roland’s wish to be alone, after his loss.”

“Oh, we should, and I will,” Thomas agrees. “But I must see to him now, and then we can leave him to his mourning.”

He opens the door and steps inside- it’s not his door to close, no, but he sets it to near-shut. If Cuthbert and Alain and Jamie hear something they don’t wish to hear, well, he can’t be sure of what they would do or feel, but he doesn’t want to trap Roland in here with him any more than he wants to be trapped in a small space with a pink-sick Roland.

“Is your Tommy, is only your good friend Tommy,” he sings lightly into the hot, still darkness. It’s not a dark to match the darkness outside, for the sun’s still up and reaching her golden fingers into all windowed parts of the castle. It’s not even the cool and peaceful darkness of a cellar or a low storage room like the Place or-

- _a sub-basement, only two small windows at ground level, rows of unlit candles_ -

-or some other such room. Roland’s room is high up and has great big windows. Even a thick array of curtains and drapery should not make this gloom so thick and gray. Thomas looks down at his hand, and even the small bar of light from the not-quite-shut door is dim, making only a paler shade of gray against the muted gray of his skin.

“This,” Thomas remarks mildly, “is not normal, Ro. Come out and say hello to your Tommy, for I have learned you boys thought me dead, perhaps, and I want to speak to you, lovey.”

“I know,” Roland’s voice, in the heavily-settled dusk of his room. “Saw you coming.”

“Did?” Thomas asks politely, casting about the room for the shadow that might contain his friend. “Have a peek, did’ee?”

“Saw,” Roland’s voice softens a little. “Saw you couldn’t step out of the apartments without help. Saw you shake and sweat and flee back inside. Saw you try again, and again, until Jamie came back home, and you could convince him to hold your hand and pretend it was the first time you’d tried.”

Thomas inhales slowly. He must admit that it stings to know that someone was watching, that someone _could_ watch, that he couldn’t escape being-watched even long enough to-

-Thomas exhales, just as slowly. It’s not that he isn’t scared or upset, or that he shouldn’t be. It’s mostly just that he thinks something _wants_ him to be.

“Ran into your Marten,” he says casually. “Would you like to know what I have to say on the subject, love?”

“He hurt you,” Roland mumbles. “He hurt my mother. He hurt me-”

“Oh, he is a very bad man, no doubt,” Thomas says, tilting his head. He doesn’t see Roland, or even the shape of him, but he can see the reflection of light on the stone wall, even when he blocks the light from the door completely with his body.

“You’re terrified of him,” Roland’s voice is soft, so soft, and then, even softer, “Why is he so afraid of him? Show me.”

Thomas sighs. “Don’t look at such things, Roland, for it isn’t-”

But he hears Roland’s sharp intake of breath, at whatever it is he does see, and Thomas’s skin crawls at the memory of those things he remembers and half-remembers, being shown in merciless ugly detail, being known by anyone, being known by his friend. He doesn’t want to know if it’s all the things that have happened to him to make him fear the Marten-man, the blue-man, the Friar-man, or if it’s just some of them, or just one of them. He doesn’t want to know what it is that’s made Roland suck in air like that, like his breath’s been all punched out of him.

“Roland,” Thomas says carefully; his eye can feel rather than see that there is something before him. “Shall put my hand on your shoulder and give you a spin, dear. You don’t want to see whatever you see now, do you? You want to see me whole and hale, aye, and know that I stand here.”

It surely is a shoulder that his hand lays upon, but one that has gone stark and thin. It’s not cold- thank every god there is, for Thomas might have shrieked with terror if Roland had been grave-cold, or even _him_ -cold- but it’s hot, too hot to be healthy, too hot to be _right_.

“Sweetheart, dear,” Thomas says softly, giving him a tug. “Roland, my friend-”

The thing that looks his way is not Roland, and does not look up at him, only points a face in his direction, and only reluctantly, only because Thomas made it. There are a pair of marbles in its face where Roland’s eyes would be, aye, small pink glass balls, pink like blood dirtying a pan of water in the moonlight, pink like a fine spray of bone and gristle where a head should be. It’s not a lovely pink at all, no, a _lurid_ pink, a pink that looks the way Colton Whitman smells to him.

 _No one would cast blame if I ran now, and might even be I could forget this, with enough time_ , Thomas catches himself thinking.

Thomas wrests his gaze away from not-Roland’s face, because lying heavy and hard in his hands, cradled against his chest, is the Thing. It calls to him- in some remote way, across time, across Whens, across memory farther than the human meat of his fifteen-year-old brain can carry, it crawls to him. There is no other light in Roland’s room, Thomas sees, because It is drinking the light itself, eating it, taking it for some other purpose-

- _it keeps the light, it eats the light, it needs the light_ -

-and all that’s left is the faint pink pulse in Roland now.

“Now, then,” Thomas says, his voice thin and greasy to his own ears. “Enough of this, Ro. You don’t want this thing eating up the rest of your day, do you?”

“It’s the only way I can see her,” Roland’s voice mutters, aye, but it’s not Roland, is it? This hunched thing, this sad thing, dead to the life around him? The light flickers- not the slow and plodding pulse of a heartbeat, but more like- like a lick of flame, he thinks, and shivers.

“Roland,” Thomas tries, encouraged to be spoken to, at least. “Who, lovey? Who do you think you see?”

“Susan,” Roland breathes out, and those pink glass things lower ever closer to the pink glass Bend. “Oh, my Susan, oh my love.”

“It isn’t so, Roland,” Thomas sighs. “A picture of her is not her, even one what moves.” He wants to touch it, he thinks. He doesn’t want to touch it, for he knows he shouldn’t. He knows what the books and scrolls have to say about the Bends, about how some of them, periodically, grow _hungry_ , and he knows that what it does to Roland now, it will happily do to them both, aye, and not have the decency to spit Roland back out just because it’s got a mouthful of Thomas.

“Would you like to see her?” Roland asks, his voice soft, husky with some broken emotion.

“Your lady? Certainly not, Ro,” Thomas says, shaking his head in the darkness. “She’s gone, Roland, and there is naught but memory of her now, and that’s the only place she can be now for you, Roland. You cannot see anything in that glass you were meant to see or keep in your heart, love, and-”

“No,” Not-Roland’s voice, not even pretending. “Not Susan Delgado. _Her_. Verise Whitman, Malatesta-that-was. Would you like to see her, Tommy? Would you like to see your mother now?”

“No, for she’s ever- ever so happy, Roland, back in her home, in and on the open waters,” Thomas says, and he thinks he can see the glint of the pink light against- or through- Roland’s teeth as they bare. Too dark to see if it’s a smile or a snarl. Thomas sighs, knows very well what he must do, or at least, what the old scribes thought was important to do, what they thought would help against such a being as whatever It is that reaches out to Roland’s heart and squeezes. “Roland, my mother’s none of your business, either, don’t you think?”

“Tommy,” Not-Roland breathes, almost a purr in the pinked light. “Don’t you want to know why she leaves you with that man? Don’t you wonder why she’d let him do that to you-”

“You won’t like it,” Thomas says, feeling at his belt for his gloves. He thinks he must have left them in Cuthbert’s room, and is very, very sure that he shouldn’t touch that Thing with his bare skin, no. Certainly not during the ritual. He starts pulling off his boots in the dark. “You won’t like it, how I make you leave poor Roland alone, but you seem to think you know better.”

“I am Roland, Tommy,” Not-Roland says, standing all a-sudden, looming into Thomas’s space, breathing hot and rotten-meat-honeysuckle onto Thomas’s neck. “Silly, stupid Tommy. Just a daft old Tommy, aren’t you?”

“Aye, just a one,” Thomas mutters, jerking away from the smell as he hops to peel off his socks. “And you’re naught but a little babby, aren’t you? Just a wee little-”

- _hungry chap, so hungry_ -

“-little… little babby,” he finishes, trailing off as Not-Roland looms up against him again, and he takes another step back as he forces his hands into his socks, mittened just so. “You’re not a grown thing, are you? No, you are not, for all that you’ve been in that Bend long-and-long. What babbies _we_ must look to you, sad thing you are, but it matters not at all, for I can’t be a-lettin’ you continue on this way, you know.”

“Would you really hurt me, Tommy? Your own dinh, then?”

Thomas is, indeed, very sorry about what he’ll do, but he doesn’t think it can be any worse than the Thing making Roland sick.

“Silly, silly-”

“Alas, Ro, I fear this will be worse for me than it is for you just now,” Thomas says, carefully catching Roland’s face in his hands and kissing him. The scrolls and books, unfortunately, were not very clear on what it meant to extend one’s ka like a tongue, but considering the nature of the Grapefruit and its apparent inhabitant, well, extending one’s actual tongue should also be sufficient.

He can’t remember having kissed anyone but Jamie- _has_ kissed Jamie lots, in this When, and he’s pretty sure in others- but he knows he must have done, for he isn’t surprised by the difference of the feel of Roland in his hands. He wonders When he kissed Roland like this, wonders if Roland would have ever liked to, before this fateful and sorrowful journey to Mejis.

No matter. The ritual of chüd is relatively firm on the idea of what he should do when he’s got the tongue of the Things that incubate and consume from the insides of the Bends, and when Roland’s tongue- oh, night-jasmine and cool grass over rotten bones, It is trying, It _is_ trying- slips between his lips and hungrily explores the inside of Thomas’s mouth, he bites down, hard enough to latch, his own teeth cutting into the bottom of his tongue.

Instantly there is a pain- a row of needles, not unlike the first tattooist’s needle he’d built himself, but nothing that resembles the even, human shape and look of Roland’s actual teeth. Thomas’s mouth fills with blood, and he thinks- confusingly, without context: _do I always bite my tongue around this Now, then?_

“Foolish boy,” some Thing says, so very Pink, so very hungry and lonely and filthy somehow. “Foolish, silly, daft old heretic, prideful sinner, wicked and silly Tommy.”

 _No_ , Thomas thinks, hands still on Roland’s face, stroking it gently with one broad thumb through the thickly knitted sole of his sock. _No, lovey. Am none of those things; you just don’t like it._

“Bad, bad boy,” It says, the bones in Roland’s face rumbling slightly in his hands. “You are your father’s son, Tommy, nasty boy, bad and wicked boy-”

 _Am not_ , he thinks, but he can _feel_ It smile against his mouth, and feel their blood mingle in his mouth, oozing down his throat. _Am only as good as I can be, then. Can only try my hardest_.

“Look at me, Tommy,” It commands. “Look at me, Tommy.”

Roland’s hands are full, still cradling It against his chest, but his knee draws up between their legs, gliding denim-on-denim against the inside of Thomas’s knee. Still clutching onto Roland’s face, Thomas takes a clumsy half-step back to get away from the touch, almost falls. His eyes flick up slightly, just toward the face pressed against his, and his eyes meet

_pink_

and he is falling, now, for sure, for his body is a-lurching, and Roland’s body is no support at all, even though the burning in his mouth is fierce, even though he feels like he’s choking on blood, now.

“Which one is it, Tommy?” It asks, a mouth like a dimly glowing coal against his ear and jaw. “Is it that a lady loved her son so little that she’d sacrifice him to be careless and free? Were you just a bad, bad boy, Tommy, worthless and soft, not fit for the seafarer she wanted to be-”

-a lady with great big hands and an enormous pile of hair and he barely knows her face, but he knows it, he does, and she knows that the gunslinger will not bother looking for her if he has a chance to be alone with the boy for a few hours, and a few hours is all it would take to get onto a horse, get to a port on the river nearby, and be taken far away, and never mind that daddy is a wolf, isn’t he? never mind that daddy is a wolf, aye, and hungry, and all hungry wolves are the same, aren’t they?-

 _Stop that_ , Thomas thinks, shaking, _it wouldn’t have been like that, she wouldn’t have, she loves me._

“-or did that big, scary wolf eat her up, Tommy? Is she all bone and slime now, Tommy, the bits of her that haven’t been eaten up, did she feed the wolf, Tommy, or did the wolf just kill her and leave her for the bugs and the rats and the crawling things?”

Thomas swallows a mouthful of blood, gagging on it, gagging at the picture, very sharp and clear, very pink-

-a lady with great big hands and an enormous pile of hair and he barely knows her face, no, for she went away when he was just a boy of five, too young to remember her, as daddy likes to shout, as daddy always shouts eventually, a big lovely lady who wanted her little boy to be a sailor or a craftsman and live by the sea, a big lovely lady who tried to take him away, oh yes, bundled him up in a coat and tried to leave their home in the night, only that gunslinger was a wolf, wasn’t he, mama? did the wolf tear open her throat while she screamed and screamed, did the wolf bite into her soft-soft-soft skin until the blood bubbled and ran and she screamed and he hit her, that bad old wolf did, until the screaming stopped, and he told you that you saw nothing and so you didn’t, and he dropped her red-red-red body down and dragged her away, away to be eaten, aye, for all hungry wolves is really all the same wolf, the same daddy-

“Thomaaas,” It croons at him, and he knows he is weeping and choking, for both things are true, both things are in front of him, aye, and real, and his mother is alive and well and all she had to do was let his father have him, and his mother is dead and gone and rotting away because she wanted to take him from his father, both at once, both together.

 _Isn’t true, isn’t true_ , Thomas tries to argue and can’t, for his mouth is full. It laughs against his jaw and puts a tongue in his ear, still talking in a voice that is-not-can-not be Roland’s.

“Aren’t you just like him, though? Aren’t you just your father’s son, Tommy? Aren’t you just a wolf to the little boys in your ka-tet, Tommy, aren’t you just another monster that kills them? Aren’t you a wolf yourself, Thomas? Only now you think _you_ should be allowed to eat them up, the way you were eaten up, only now you think wolves are all hungry, only now you think your poor Jamie looks like food, isn’t that right, Tommy?”

Thomas gags again, acid crawling up into his mouth, up the back of his nose as he chokes and coughs on blood and bile. He wants to spit out the thing in his mouth, and realizes

very slow and dim, a silly daft tommy

that the thing’s mouth is still on his, Its tongue still in his mouth, and that he is holding onto Roland because Roland is dear to him, because he loves him so, only

that is not the thing Thomas meant to grab onto

and It knows that.

“Let go, Tommy,” Not-Roland whispers, inviting-like, soft-like.

 _Mustn’t_ , Thomas reminds himself, breathing through his nose. Smells of sick-person sweat, aye, and burnt wood, and something damp that’s been left in the dark. The smell of Roland, he reckons.

“Let me go, Thomas, for we all know you can’t hold me,” It says, sounding almost like a friend. And Thomas thinks of his mother’s voice, for he remembers it ever so much clearer than her face, _inside of everything that is or was or ever will be_ , and he thinks of a rose in his own blood over his heart, he thinks of the sound of soft and mournful singing, and a wave of pity rolls over him, a thick and chilly blanket that flattens down the fear and pain and revulsion.

 _I can and I will, poor babby that you are_ , he thinks, and something hisses like a cat against his mouth.

“Let me go, Thomas. Let me go. Let go of me right now!”

 _I will not_ , Thomas thinks sorrowfully. _Would not, no, same as I wouldn’t just drop any babby, for you can’t help that you’ve no one to love you, can you?_

“Stop it! Let me go!” Writhing like a hooked worm against him now, furious and frightened. “Stop it or _I’ll kill him_ , Thomas!”

Then I really _won’t_ have any reason to let you go, will I?

The wriggling stops, silence over the sound of ragged panting breaths.

Because you know what happens now, don’t you? You kill my dear Roland, and that is _very_ sad, but you’re just an infant in the way of whatever Thing you are, and I think you don’t want to find out if I will take you with me when the guards come in and shoot me dead for murdering the son of Steven Deschain… and I come back here, don’t I, only this time you’re with me, poor little thing you are, and mayhap I never let you go, for often, you know, I do things even after I forget why I did them.

“No,” Not-Roland moans softly. “No. Let me go.”

You’ll have to let go of Roland, then, for I won’t do such a thing if you’re still held onto him, as I believe you have guessed, lovey.

And perhaps It would keep a promise, because It starts to retreat immediately. The colors come back to the room even before the light does, and there’s light enough to see again, and his poor, dear Roland is pale as anything, bruises under his eyes, which flutter shut.  Roland sways, then sags against him, still holding the Bend. Thomas grabs onto it with his sock-covered hands, mindful not to let his skin touch it.

No helping it: Alain lets out a hoarse yelp, finally able to see into the room- and, Thomas guesses, finally able to See and Feel them, as well- and rushes in. Thomas opens his mouth and Roland slumps over, and Alain and Bert and Jamie are with them, grabbing onto Roland but- wise, very wise, for all wolves must be approached with caution, aye- a little afraid to touch Thomas.

Thomas steps back and away from them, his mouth thick with clotting blood. “Did it hurt him, then?”

“Thomas-” Bert glances at him, frowning. “Where did all this blood come out of, Thomas?”

“Check his tongue,” Thomas mumbles. “And please, one of you must fetch-” He pauses, looking over Roland’s prone form, a new and yet familiar wave of sadness and pity washing over him. “-should be Master Vannay, I would say, for he’ll know what to do with this naughty thing, he will.”

“Thomas,” Alain says shakily, “be careful, please, we saw this thing in Mejis, we saw it at work, it-”

“No worries, Al,” Thomas says, even though indeed, he has many worries. “Little Pinky here isn’t the one I’m a-seekin’, and I have had my fill of her, I think.”

He looks blearily around until he finds what he seeks for now, at least: one of the two pillows on Roland’s bed, and more to the point, the case for his pillow. He shoves the Bend into the pillowcase, though it does look very comfy on the bed, doesn’t it? Thomas would like to lie down and knows it can’t be proper to do so.

He peels the socks off his hands, gazing at the inert, bagged Bend sitting on Roland’s coverlet, and slowly, absentmindedly uses his sock to scrub the blood from his mouth. Is it done, then? Is it over?

_Is it time to go to sleep, Tommy, and wake up again in your mother’s arms, now?_

Thomas startles, for the voice sounded very like Not-Roland, but he is still unconscious and his friends are not acting as though Roland’s just did or said anything worrisome, so-

-so _is_ it safe to go to sleep now? Surely… surely no one would mind, and perhaps it would be better, perhaps this is enough to make it the last time-

Jamie’s hand is on his shoulder, resting against the base of his neck.

“Could you three hear it any?” Thomas asks softly, fearfully, and Jamie’s hand strokes down his spine and rests at the base of his back, and Jamie’s forehead presses against Thomas’s shoulder.

“No,” Jamie murmurs, and is there a lie there? He can’t say, doesn’t want to suspect. He thinks hearing any of what It had said would have hurt Jamie. “Should come home and clean up and rest before you see Master Vannay about the ball.”

“Want to be presentable,” Thomas agrees, nodding faintly. “Yes. Must go to-” He trails off, for he doesn’t know how it will look to the guards and the others of their ever-shrinking ka-tel, if he turns up yet again looking all wrecked and bloody-mouthed. It occurs dreadfully to him, as well, that he might not be able to get into his barracks after all this time- even his trunk had been brought to the Allgood home.

And of course, Cuthbert’s home now, isn’t he? Aye, he is, and that was the only reason the Allgoods had room for a silly daft Tommy who couldn’t even walk the halls alone. He’s not sure where he’ll ask to have his trunk moved from the Allgood home, though he presumes it should be sooner rather than later. He doesn’t enjoy the idea of it being brought to Colton Whitman’s home, even though it’s the only place he could go to wash up and change and have an ounce of privacy. Perhaps- he knows a few places, aye, a few streams and ponds, he could go there, wash off the blood, drink a little water, nap a little.

He gives himself a shake. No point being squeamish about it. He’ll think of something when, when he- when he’s washed and changed, aye, and mayhap he’ll find himself somewhere safe to take a rest, and then he can tell Master Vannay all about the- the-

“Master Vannay,” Thomas says suddenly, snapping his head up. “Must- must go get him, he- he’ll know what to do, surely. Can’t leave this thing here, can we?”

“Think he’s at Cort’s,” Alain mutters, glancing over at them from his spot at Roland’s side. “I’m calling for him, though, and he is coming, Tommy, you should- you should wait here for him, let him see you.”

“Why?” Thomas finds himself just a bit too lightheaded, perhaps, and his stomach hurts him something terrible. “Should… should wash up, though, should go and… go and find that wolf, aye, ask him if he ate her up, I should.”

Jamie’s hand is iron on his arm and back now, pinning him in place, and Jamie’s voice, aye, also very iron, very stone. “Tommy, sit down and wait for Master Vannay.”

“Yes, love,” he sighs, and Jamie helps him sit on the stone floor to wait, and Jamie sits carefully at his side, and holds his hand so that he doesn’t feel so inclined to leave, and it’s not really so bad to wait.

Alain might have Sent their tutor a pretty good idea of what to expect, too, for Master Vannay appears with a dark, ironwood box, lined with some dark cloth, and doesn’t look surprised at all to see either Roland or Tommy with bloody faces and clothing.

Thomas is sort of looking forward to reading what Vannay will have to write down in his books about the Bends, after this.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It becomes evident, after enough fussing and encouragement and flimsy excuses, that Lavinia and Robert Allgood fully expect Thomas to stay with them, still, on the nights that he does not stay in his barracks after classes. Thomas sleeps in Jamie’s room most of these nights, whimpering awake into confused darkness, often with Jamie already half-alert and holding him to his chest. Sometimes he is in Cuthbert’s room, with or without Cuthbert, who likes to put an arm around him and tell him stories about Mejis until he can sleep again. They both like to play with his hair, before and after sleeping, and he thinks he likes that just fine.

(Cuthbert, it seems, is usually with Alain somewhere. Thomas doesn’t remember that from this age- he remembers it from after the Fall, yes, but never this young, never this early. He doesn’t know what it means, if it means anything. He’s usually just glad to have somewhere to sleep that Col Whitman’s never been.)

Roland gains some of his health back, looks a little stronger- if a little sadder, and probably no more or less wiser. He is quieter than he was before- no mean feat, that, for Roland has always been second-quietest- and sometimes pulls Thomas into his arms, burying his face against his hair, clutching onto him when he thinks Thomas will move or leave. He does not tell Thomas what he saw in the Bend, and only once mentions it at all.

“My mother is to come home this week,” he says. They are together in Cuthbert’s room; Jamie and Cuthbert are out and on the green, Jamie with his bah and Cuthbert with his sling. They’d invited Thomas and Roland to come with, of course, but Roland’s hands only feel at home on a gun now, and Thomas knows that he will be sick to death of killing things by the time he’s dead, even if those things are just animal skulls and stones and bits of trash lined up on a fence.

Thomas plays with Roland’s hair, his head in his lap, as Roland scrutinizes the copies Thomas made of Vannay’s books all during his time of healing- his convalescence, aye, for Master Vannay _really_ kept using the word until he understood its meaning. He does not know what to say about Roland’s mother- many, many things jump to the fore of his mind, and he’s not sure which of them are real or relevant.

“I think your mother and my mother is friends,” Thomas says softly. “Something I remember her saying once, in another When. Do you think my mother writes to her, Ro?”

“I don’t know,” Roland says tonelessly. Thomas glances up. Roland’s thumb is gently rubbing at the surface of the parchment, next to a diagram- just a very simple one, of circles inside of circles, that Thomas doesn’t understand even after drawing a copy of it himself. It seems like a stretch to think that Roland is still reading this page.

“Do you want to talk about your mother, Roland?” Thomas asks softly. His hand moves to Roland’s cheek, and Roland’s hand goes to it, giving it a soft squeeze.

“I don’t know that you’ll understand,” Roland says softly. “For I know that I do not.”

“Perhaps speaking of it will help you,” Thomas suggests. “Sometimes that is true of me, you know.”

“I know.” Roland presses his face against Thomas’s hand, then lets his own hands fall to his chest. “I want my mother to be home. And I don’t want it, either. I want her to go to my father and love him again, not… not what was before.”

 _When she was with Marten_ , he does not say, all wind and lightning.

 _I know, love_ , Thomas doesn’t say, giving his hair another caress.

“And I… I don’t want her to be here at all, and if she’s here, I want my father to- to not be here,” Roland mumbles. “I want for it to be just herself and myself.”

_it is no sin for a boy to love his mother_

Thomas winces, still carding his fingers through and through Roland’s glossy, dark hair.

“Thomas?” Roland asks, and for a moment he sounds small and Pinked, and Thomas freezes. “Do you- do you think my father-”

He trails off. _Do you think he loves her?_

Thomas thinks of a cold, high man, sitting upon a cold, high granite peak, all the punishing wind that blows through and through Roland’s heart.

“I think,” Thomas says slowly, “that what you feel and see of him may not be what he sees of himself. I think, Ro, that things that might look… not at all like love, to you or to me or to your lady mother, would look like love to someone who didn’t know or understand his own capacity for it. And I suppose I would say that love is not exclusive of hate, or loathing, or… or the feeling that comes of wanting something and hating yourself for wanting it and hating it for being wanted.”

He thinks of Col Whitman, gazing down at him in the darkness, a darker shadow in the shadows of his moonlit nursery.

“Why _Marten_?” Roland asks abruptly, though Thomas thinks he understands his meaning.

“I don’t know,” Thomas says honestly. “Suppose that is a question that only she could answer, though, and even may not know the true answer in her secretest of hearts.”

Roland turns against him, mutely maneuvering them until they’re lying side-by-side, Roland’s hand clutching onto the front of Thomas’s shirt- like a child, Thomas realizes with a pang of worry and aching love, like a child afraid of losing someone in a crowd. They lay for a few more moments in silence, no stink of blood between them but the softness of the soap Roland uses and of the soap that Thomas uses now that he lives here.

“I think she…” Roland trails off, and Thomas isn’t sure who he means. “You always speak and think so highly of her.”

Thomas’s Mama, then. He nods, shifting a little to make himself more comfortable, for his right shoulder protests sudden-and-fierce against the weight of Roland’s head and neck.

“I don’t think she wouldn’t have ever written to you, or to my mother,” Roland says, very, very quiet. “If she is the lady you remember. But- but I don’t know, Thomas, if your wolf- if your father, I mean to say-”

Thomas puts a hand on Roland’s chest. “Don’t.”

Roland quiets. Was a time, Thomas thinks, that he wouldn’t have. Was many Times, in fact.

Thomas shifts again, and Roland moves suddenly- not up, not away, but lowering himself a little, still too reluctant to be parted from Thomas to let go of him, his face pressed against the side of Thomas’s chest. The soreness in his shoulder eases, and Roland is warm against him.

“Your birthday tomorrow,” Roland murmurs, a soft rumble against Thomas’s ribs, and he knows that the subject of before has been dropped, for Roland sounds nearly-himself. “Sixteen.”

“Aye, true enough, I suppose,” Thomas agrees. He can’t imagine loving this fey and lovely boy any less than he does now, or any more: Roland has always been the storm, relentlessly powerful, swiping across seas and skies alike, bringing healing rains and cleansing winds and the forgiveness of dark and the godlike fingers of his lightning-judgement. And he’s always been the storm, aye, the overwhelming floods and the unthinking destruction of the high winds and the blindness of dark and the merciless, loveless thunder of his guns.

Thomas sighs a little, putting his hand into Roland’s hair again.

“Alright, Tommy?” Roland asks softly, and Thomas smiles faintly at him.

“I just thought of how dearly I love you, and missed you,” Thomas says- honest, but too simple, just simple enough to make it out of his mouth, for he can’t think of the words he means.

“I love you, too, Tommy,” Roland says, and his blue eyes are beautiful, and he is not trying to be _kind_ , only honest.

 _This boy I have died for_ , Thomas thinks, sighing happily and closing his eyes.

“Do you want to do anything tomorrow?” Roland asks him, and something nags at him- his sixteenth birthday, and Gabrielle Deschain returning to the castle, and Roland in mourning, aye, all the rest of their short lives together.

“I want you to stay with me and Jamie and Al and Bert,” Thomas whispers. “I want you to stay with us.”

“Then I will,” Roland says, and that settles it. He puts his head down again, face pressed into the side of Thomas’s chest, and it seems very like a good time for them both to nap until Jamie and Bert get back home.

Thomas does have a very good birthday, only: when he tucks himself into bed on the guest-cot in Jamie’s room, he sits up suddenly, for he expected to hear something and didn’t, and he thinks for a moment that he must have, anyway.

“Was that a gunshot-noise, Jay?” he asks anxiously, and Jamie shakes his head firmly. “Only… only I thought… and Roland is alright, do you think?”

“Roland only just left,” Jamie says softly. “Remember, Tommy? He was fine when he left.” And, perhaps thinking of Thomas’s terror of leaving the apartment, of stepping into the hallways of the castle he grew up in, adding, “Alain has been feeling out for him since they came home, too. Alain would tell us if something wasn’t right.”

Thomas fidgets. No thunder of gunfire on his sixteenth birthday. Why is that? Who was supposed to have shot and been shot at?

Sixteen… Thomas’s heart sinks. How long til Gilead falls? Eleven months, perhaps twelve or thirteen months at most?

Thomas worries at the edge of the blanket over him, until Jamie gently clears his throat.

“Alright, Tommy?”

“Mm,” Thomas says, and Jamie sighs.

“Come lay down, then?”

Thomas thinks that should be alright, then. He gets out of bed and crawls into Jamie’s and wakes up many times, to nightmares of fire and wind.

And when he rises in the morning, Gabrielle Deschain is at the dining-hall table with Steven and Roland, and Thomas stares, for he is sure that he’s never seen her here after she goes to Debaria.  

Thomas asks Cuthbert once they’re back ( _home_ , as Cuthbert’s parents say it, they call it Thomas’s home) if he would please go and get Alain and Roland, and he and Jamie will meet them.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It’s a good, green place- as good as The Place, cool and quiet, surrounded by lovely trees and lined with bright grass and smooth, flat rocks to sit or lay on. There is a small, slow spring nearby, that feeds a little pond, and a series of small cracks that Thomas himself has investigated with glee, where the waters seep back out again, into some unimagined underground river system, perhaps. It is a romantic thing, to Thomas, for he thinks of secret waters, carrying little lives and clean thoughts and drinks to secret places in the darkness, perhaps lit by little chinks of light from the surface, perhaps even lit by gems or old, forgotten electric lamps.

“Tommy,” Alain says, and Thomas smiles at him, because the place he imagines is so old, though, large and cold and a little wet at all times, a secret hidden for good boys, aye, a fascinating old place for good Tommys. Alain takes his hand and for a moment Alain is with him, hip-deep in black waters, hands on black stones, jewel-light lights spaced far apart and dim and flickering.

“Tommy,” Alain says again, and Thomas is on his knees in the grass, and there is no Underground Water-Place that he knows of, and he can’t think of how to reach it, anyway. Thomas takes his hands out of the pool. “Where were you wandering just now, Tom?”

“Don’t know,” Thomas says thoughtfully, then, “not under the castle, then?”

“I don’t think so,” Alain says gently, and he nods, humming. “Are you ready to tell us what’s got your brain firing so quickly, then? For we’ve all come, you know, and we’d like to hear it.”

Thomas looks at them- at Roland, who is afraid to be tentatively glad that his mother is home, and at Cuthbert and Alain, who keep stealing tiny glances at one another, joined in thought more and more these days, and at Jamie, who is smiling softly at him beneath the naked concern in his eyes. How he loves them, how beautiful they are, the boy of storm and the boys of skies and the boy who is the sea.

“I love you,” he says simply, to them as a whole, to their ka-tet as it stands today. He takes a deep breath. There is so much he wants to say, and he’s sure- dreadfully sure- that he can’t find a way to say any of it. He startles himself- aye, and Alain, who’s closest- with a sharp cry of frustration, pounding the heels of his palms against his thighs.

“It’s too big,” he mutters angrily- angry at himself, for not knowing the word for what he wants.

“Tommy, don’t,” Alain says, catching his hands, and Thomas throws his head back, glaring unhappily up at the leaves.

“What is the _point_ of this if I can’t even _do_ it right-” he almost wails, and Alain gives his wrists a gentle tug. He looks at his friends again- they seem worried, and he didn’t mean to worry them, hadn’t wanted to give them something to be concerned about on top of the monumental thing he wants them to do with and for him.

He presses his mouth shut, inhaling through his nose. “I need to ask you to do something. And I need you to help me do something. And I don’t know what the words are for what I need, ah no, I do not.”

“Of course we’ll help you, Tommy,” Cuthbert says, his lovely face tense around his eyes and mouth. “Why, anything at all, just name it-”

“-I _want_ to, Bertie, only-” Thomas exhales in a horsey snort, shaking his head furiously. “T’would be easier if I could but bring you into the silly daft house where Tommy lives and show you.”

“Thomas, that-” Roland starts uneasily, but Alain and Jamie exchange glances at once.

“Do you mean, inside your _mind_ , Tommy?” Jamie asks, and Thomas nods, sniffling.

Alain’s thumbs stroke small circles over the insides of his wrists- Thomas can feel them tracing the lines of the tattoos he will one day have, briar thorns on his left to ward away demons, rigging on the right to steady his course.

“I think I could do that,” Alain says doubtfully. “It should… it should be easier because we’re ka-tet, I think. And I think I can do it.” He pauses, hesitating before asking, “Do you remember any other times when I might have done it? Or other mes, I suppose?”

“I-” Thomas flounders, unsure what Alain means, memories disjointed and bobbing to the surface of his thoughts- some small things, a phrase or a touch or a smell, some confusing but nice, some frightening and terrible- and he tears his hands away from Alain, beating his thighs again. “ _I’m just too stupid to remember it’s too big I can’t think-_ ”

“Stop,” Jamie and Alain say together, or perhaps only his mind overlaps the two, for suddenly his arms are very tired, like he’s been doing it a while, and his loves are all around him, close by, and alive and good.

“Thomas,” Alain says urgently. “I’m sure I can do it-”

-he isn’t sure, Thomas thinks woefully, and Alain gives his head a shake.

“No, Tommy, I’ve thought it out, I am sure, I _am_ sure.”

“I don’t want you to be hurt,” Thomas says, not entirely sure how he knows to say so. He shakes his head. “I don’t want you to be hurt.”

“It won’t hurt me,” Alain lies, putting his hands on Thomas’s face. “It won’t hurt. And-” He catches the shape of Thomas’s thoughts, and sighs. “It won’t be worse than dying and dying and dying, Tommy, it won’t be worse than everything that’s already happened, and if it can help things, why, it’s worth a _little_ hurt, isn’t it?”

Thomas gives him a sorrowful look, but he knows that Alain knows what Thomas’s done and is willing to do to himself to try to make things better, and Alain is ready to bring it all up for the sake of an argument, he can see.

“If it starts to hurt more than a _little_ then you must stop at once,” Thomas mumbles, sighing.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Alain says, relieved not to be argued with. Thomas scrubs at his face.

“Well… alright, then Alain, if you’re sure-”

“I’m sure,” Alain says. “And Roland and Bert and Jamie are sure, we’re all sure. We all want to help.”

Thomas looks at them, the loves of his life, of all his lives.

“Tell me what to do, then,” he sighs, and Alain nods briskly.

“Everyone take hands,” he says, sitting back, and Thomas puts a hand in his, and a hand in Jamie’s. Even as worried as he is, though, he can’t help but feel a little hopeful at this might finally be the thing that helps.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Alain looks around at his ka-tet: gods, he thinks, deeply and with his whole being, he loves them so much, he loves them so entirely.

Thomas’s hand is warm in his left, and Cuthbert’s is warm in his right.

He reaches out for them, through Tommy, and for a second the force of his reach dizzies him- he knows that Tommy makes everything louder and clearer, yes, but it occurs to him in a way that it somehow hasn’t occurred before now that Tommy is a place of echoes, a place of multiplication, a place of facilitation, so that one voice raised in a yell might become ten, forty, a hundred voices, bouncing off one another, the force of the sound shaking the very air itself. He reaches out for Roland and Cuthbert and Jamie and Thomas, through Thomas, and then he joins them, and pulls all of them _into_ Thomas, into the deepest part of their Tommy-

-the water is warm but it’s still a shock to be under it, bubbles rising from his mouth as he cries out in alarm, as he struggles desperately to swim upwards, toward the light overhead. A part of him knows he can’t be hurt- isn’t allowed to be hurt- but for a moment Alain can’t think of anything but his shock, even as he draws in another

(?breath?)

and cries out again. A pair of broad hands catch him under his armpits and he is pulled upwards- he has a sense of them only, large and knobbly and covered in tattoos. He is almost nearly dry by the time he is deposited safely onto a wooden deck.

“Sorry, Al!” a voice that is very like Tommy’s says cheerfully. “Forgot that you do go in deep when you goes, aye?”

He looks around- Roland and Jamie are gaping at their surroundings still, and Cuthbert is by him, stroking his curls away from his forehead, looking concerned and glad that he seems alright. No Thomas, though.

“Alright, Tommy?” he calls out, and the deck below him- a _boat_ , he realizes at once, handsomely built of a rich, auburn-colored wood and carved and branded with almost-familiar drawings and designs, some that he recognizes from the hands that pulled him up- rocks happily in the smooth, calm waters. “Thomas, is- is this _you_?”

“Oh, aye, seems to be,” Thomas says brightly. Jamie runs a wondering hand over a twisting pattern in the wood, his eyes alight as he glances back at Alain. “Say-sorry, Alain, for I’m not sure what made it be so.”

Alain looks around them now- the waters are a brilliant blue, crystal-clear and very deep, and all around, as far as he can see, are green islands, each one a little different than the last, some with merry little lines of white smoke rising from campfires, some with darker columns of it, even a handful with what look like active volcanoes, mountains shooting up red flame and black smoke like they’ve seen in illustrations but none of them ever in real life.

It strikes Alain with deadly certainty that he is looking at Thomas, more than the little boat they’re in, that here lies _all_ of him, all of the lives and attempts he’s made at living. There must be dozens, hundreds, he thinks if he strains his eyes he can see thousands-

-Alain glances up at the sky and cries out softly, for a moment he thinks he is looking into the water, for he can see as though a reflection- the blue waters, the little islands, the streams of fire and smoke- only no boat, he realizes, no Tommy-boat carrying the ka-tet, and the islands subtly different, too-

-and Alain glances down at the crystal waters and he cries out again, for it is repeated there, as well, not a lagoon at all but another sky full of another lagoon and another chain of thousands and thousands of islands, more than he can count, more than he can guess, and it strikes him that it’s so beautiful, but so vast, so ancient, and he for just a moment despairs, for Thomas has been at this wheel of suffering and repetition for longer than he can even dream.

“Alright, Alain?” Cuthbert asks softly, and Alain looks at him, shocked and delighted- there is a faint glow about him, as though he’s kissed by starlight and moonlight, and every line and shadow carved from a sliver of midnight sky. He looks at Roland, his dark hair drifting slightly in a private wind, little glints of silvery lightning at his eyes and with every movement he makes. He looks at Jamie, gleaming and deep and lovely, every breath a gentle wave, his eyes and hair brilliant with the sound of a babbling brook. He looks at his hands- he thinks if he wanted to he could even look at himself, but he doesn’t think he wants to, necessarily- and they are golden-cloudy-soft, a high afternoon light and a sunset together.

“This is how he sees us,” he whispers, and Bert gives him a small, confused smile- and Alain realizes, sadness rocking through him, that he’s the only one who _can_ see it, that they see each other as they are in life, that they see one lovely lagoon and a gorgeous archipelago and a sunny sky improbably dotted with stars and galaxies and a turquoise ocean, warm and calm.

“Tommy, it’s strange to look down at a boat to talk to you,” Roland says carefully, directing his speech to the wood beneath their feet. Alain wants to giggle hysterically at it, clutching onto Bert’s moonshadow hand- he could just speak to the skies, to the air, to the horizon, it’s all Tommy, it’s _all_ Tommy.

“I can make a Tommy,” Thomas says cheerfully. “Sure I can. Give us a moment, lovey, then you can talk to him.”

And suddenly there is a Tommy standing on deck- _lots_ of Thomases, overlapping one another in the same exact spot, and Alain hears Cuthbert suck in a breath, and sees Roland and Jamie startle back- he doesn’t think they can see all of the Thomases, no, but they must see some. Most of the Thomases are tall- taller than Thomas is now, though it does seem he’s got most of his height by sixteen- and broader at the shoulder and chest and gut, though some of them are frighteningly thin. Most of the Thomases are naked to the waist, and they’re all covered in the same tattoos- though some, oddly, have other tattoos layered under them, and a few have even more, painful-looking brands over some of the more usual ink and crude, insulting markings on his too-thin faces and necks. All of them have long hair, and all of them look delighted to see them, even the hollow-eyed nearly-dead Thomases (or- already-dead? Alain doesn’t like the waxy gray pallor of those Thomases; something about the way they keep flicking their half-blind eyes his way gives him a shiver.)

“It’s too many, Tommy,” Cuthbert breathes out. “Can you make just one of you, Thomas? Only I think my eyes can’t decide on which of you is the _real_ you, dear.”

“Ooh, I think I see what you mean,” Tommy- all of him, echoing hundreds of thousands of times over- says, looking at an army of left hands. “Have we been here before? It’s been long and long, I think it has, for I misremember how, but-”

He tosses his hair, pressing his hands against the sides of his face, and soon he is only a hundred Tommys, a dozen, a handful. He stops, looking hopefully up at them. “Is that better?”

Alain’s mouth is dry. There are fewer of him now, yes, but his face is even _less_ distinct now, not more, as if they’re viewing it through layers of frosted glass. Everything else is crisp, as sharply-defined as the sea floor below the crystal waters.

He’s the right height for sixteen, at least, and the right general shape, with a waterfall of chestnut hair and the apparent minimum of tattoos- which is, granted, a very large number still, far more than Alain would have imagined on his own. The shine of an invisible sun sparkles on the lagoon, and Alain understands it to be a hopeful smile as Tommy spreads his hands out. There aren’t too many differences between the Tommys that they see, at least.

“That’s… better, yes,” Roland says slowly, reluctant to say something that might hurt their friend. “Are you- are you thinking with just one mind, Thomas, or- or all of them?”

“Just one, aye, just one Tommy,” Thomas replies brightly, and Alain realizes slowly that the Tommy on deck is just an image, that Thomas is still the boat, still carrying them safely in the center of his mind. Alain runs his hand over the wood- _alright, my lovely tommy?_ \- and the boat rocks happily in reply.

“Thomas, what did you want to tell us?” Cuthbert asks gently, and the Tommy on deck gives him a quizzical look- even in his mind, he wanders, Alain thinks.

“Tell… us?” Tommy repeats slowly, and Jamie takes the Tommy’s hand in his right, holding onto a carved, chest-height rail with his left.

Jamie doesn’t open his mouth, but they hear his intentions clearly- can even see, dancing around him in twinkles of brightness like a glimmer of electric light over a glass of water, pictures and pictograms. He gently rubs his thumbs over the parts of Tommy he has his hands on, and asks: _What do we need to do to help you, Thomas? What do you need of us?_

Everything sighs around them, and the Tommy on deck gives Jamie a lovelorn little grin, admiring him openly.

“I think,” Thomas says slowly, dreamily, “that I know it from a time before, only couldn’t do it then, for some reason or ‘nother. I think we will need to go there to know the Words.”

He tilts his head toward an island and without any feeling of apparent motion they are suddenly _there_ , bobbing lightly in shallow, knee-deep water next to beach covered in white sand. Cuthbert peers over the edge into the water, frowning. “Tommy, what are those things swimming around the waters?”

“I don’t know,” Thomas says cheerfully, and Alain takes a peek. Some of them look oddly insectile, large as a small dog and long and sectioned into plates of chitinous black armor, with great huge claws and snapping beaks. “I think they’re just a part of the memory-time, though, and not a real thing. I wouldn’t let them eat any of your fingers, oh no, I would not.”

“That’s very specific,” Alain says neutrally, and for a moment it’s not Tommy but Roland who looks doubled to him- overlayed neatly over the Roland he came in with, and older, and missing the first two fingers of his right hand. “Do you think we’ve been in a place like this before, in another When, Tommy?”

“I don’t know! Very likely so,” Thomas replies, a little less cheerful. “Come along, though-”

A section of the rail disappears and a broad ramp appears, leading them over the water and to the safe, level sand of the beach. The Tommy on deck shimmers a little, then appears on the sand, waving them over.

“Sometimes,” Tommy says brightly as the four of them cautiously make their way to him, “I see a place like this in my dreams, but usually I don’t remember them much, for I think the dreams upset me. Sunsets, and sunrises, aye. Hunting for our dinners, hunting the hunters. Did-a-chum-a-did-a-chee? Dod-a-chock-a-dee-a-check?”

“What?” Roland asks blankly, and Tommy dissolves into giggles.

“Just a little joke that I think must have been _very_ funny once,” he chortles, stamping his feet a little in the sand. “Come with me.”

As they troop after him, Alain sees his ka-tet glance curiously around- no matter what they do, they seem to be following an existing path of wandering footsteps in the sand, though they’re too overlapped to see clearly how many, and look to be heading in the opposite direction as they are.

“Thomas?” Cuthbert asks, peering down at them. “ _Do_ you suppose we’ve been here before?”

“I don’t think so, no. Not like this, all of us young together. I think this is from the time that we all lived together by the sea, when we were all old and old.” And for a moment Alain can _see_ him as an old man, his brown hair shot through with strips of silver and tied messily back in a loose braid, walking with a cane in each hand, ancient jeans tucked into handmade buckskin boots.

Tommy shoots them a small grin, and is young again, sixteen again. “It’s good. I think I’ve suspected for a while now that _sometimes_ we must all live past that battle, but I think this is proof that we do, aye, and I think it’s nowhere near as rare as he wants me to think, for all that I can’t remember it anymore.”

“Who wants you to think that?” Roland asks, glancing over at him, and Tommy’s smile fades, and for a moment there’s three of him, overlapping but far enough away from one another that they can _all_ see him, and the Tommys all say a different name, all at once.

“ ~~Marten/Randall/Walter~~ ,” he says, and then there is only one of him, more solid than ever, though his face is still eerily blurred. “Don’t like that man, oh no, I deeply do not.”

And softly, so soft that Alain’s almost positive that he’s the only one who hears, “The Man in Black… flees across the deserts… and the gunslingers follow. Aye. Always.”

They turn a gentle curve and find a pair of homey, tile-roofed cottages, a nice little vegetable garden and a long, trenchlike soaking tub strung with lines for hanging laundry between them. Thomas lets out a happy sigh at the sight of the little houses, jogging closer and running his hands over a chair standing empty next to the garden- curiously-made, with great spoked metal wheels at the sides, like some sort of spinning-wheel, and with handles at the back.

“Oh, what a lovely,” he murmurs. “What a useful and clever contraption, aye.”

“Why don’t you sit in it then? It looks-” not _comfortable_ , Alain thinks, but before he can think of a proper word- convenient?- Tommy shakes his head wryly.

“No, ‘tisn’t mine, and she wouldn’t like for me to use her chair, I do believe,” he says, and huffs a little laugh. “None of her, even the nice one.”

“What’s that, Tommy?” Cuthbert asks sharply, but Thomas only shakes his head, wandering- for lack of a better word- into one of the houses. Alain peers inside after him- there’s a low, wide bed, piled with furs, and a sturdy table and a pair of chair-height logs on ends- one that is clearly made for Thomas’s height, and one that just as clearly was made for Jamie’s. Thomas wanders back out, looking confused, looking lost.

“Not where I thought it’d be-” he murmurs, more to himself than to them. Jamie edges close to Alain, and together they see- more a shadow than a true image- a pair of old men, Old Tommy and an old man that can only be Old Jamie, stripping and cleaning their guns at the table, Old Tommy speaking- though neither of them can hear it, Alain’s sure- and leaning close to peck a kiss onto Old Jamie’s cheek, and Old Jamie’s left hand coming up to meet his face, caressing it gently before giving him a kiss on the mouth.

The real Jamie turns, and looks at their Tommy’s back with such open love on his face that Alain’s heart swells with it. He takes Jamie’s hand, and they exchange a small smile before following Bert and Roland over to the other cottage.

“Why, Thomas!” Cuthbert crows delightedly, as soon as he enters. “Why, you’ve gone and built _me_ a house in your mind, dear!”

Alain steps in and has to stifle a laugh- it is _very_ Cuthbert in here, handsome deer skulls on the walls, a bearskin on the bed, a tangle of fallen antlers on the table joined together with small beeswax candles perched on it.

“Aye, you and Alain both live here, or did, or will,” Thomas says distractedly, digging through a leather bag.

“Where does Alain sleep?” Roland asks, looking confused and concerned- there’s only one bed here, too, and Alain can feel the worry in his thoughts at the idea of Cuthbert, somehow, making Alain sleep on a bedroll on the floor, perhaps. At his side Bert is frozen, half horrified glee at Roland’s question, half triumphant recognition of what a cottage set for both of them might mean. He glances over at Alain, and Alain can feel his face go burning hot- hot as a sun, indeed.

“The bed can fit seven, we’ve tried,” Thomas says musingly, and Cuthbert practically chokes.

“Excuse me, _what-_ ” he starts, but Thomas interrupts him with a surprised little gasp.

“Oh lovely, clever Alain, you dear!” he cries happily, holding something that looks startlingly like an enormous diamond in his hand, the size of Jamie’s fist. “Oh, clever-clever, I knew it, I _knew_ it!”

The fragrant air of the cottage is practically sparkling and sparking around them- light reflected from the gem or a manifestation of Tommy’s pride and joy, Alain couldn’t begin to say. Even Roland grins a little to see it, dancing around them.

“What’s that, Tommy?” Alain asks, and Thomas beams at him.

“It’s something _you_ left for me, Al,” he says happily, and sits primly on the foot of what must be the bed Alain shares with Cuthbert, one day, once upon a time. He brings the diamond to his mouth, kisses it, whispers something into it, and suddenly there is a- not a ghost, Alain thinks with a shiver, but close enough to mean the same thing. A broad, heavyset man rendered in soft white light, sitting on the ghostly brother of one of the simple chairs in the room, shirt open at the throat, vest open over the rounded curves of his chest and belly. The ghost-man leans a little forward, towards Thomas, one thick arm loosely looped around a sturdy walking-staff, the other moved forward, close to Thomas’s face, the shade of a bullet dancing across his knuckles.

Alain is sure that he shouldn’t feel gooseflesh crawl up his arms, and yet he does, his eyes wide and round.

“Oh, you look so handsome with a beard, Al,” Tommy murmurs, and Alain must agree that this older, bearded version of himself does look very nice with it, yes.

“Can you hear me now, Tommy?” the Alain-ghost asks gently, and it’s their Tommy who answers, his voice dreamy.

“Hear you very well, Al,” he says, his arms loose at his sides, his hands on his lap. “Oh, yes, lovey, I hear you.”

“Listen,” Alain-ghost says. “The voice of the world has spoken. The voice of all the worlds on this ribbon of the Beam have spoken. Do you understand me, Thomas? Can you tell them, and tell yourself?”

“Oh yes, Al, I understand,” Tommy says. “Tell them, tell myself. World. Ribbon. Beam. Voice has spoken. Ah, yes.”

“Yes.” Alain-ghost looks a little tired, smiling like that. Alain wonders exactly how old he is, when he says and does this. “It’s not just the _big_ victories, Thomas. It’s not just the Tower, or the Great Battles. That line of thought is what ended the Great Old Ones. Do you understand, Thomas?”

“I think so, Alain,” Tommy says agreeably, sounding drugged. “Aye, I think I do. The small victories, Alain. Love. Susan. A single rose. David. The boy under the mountain, aye, and the kindness of a stranger, and the baby-boy with two mothers and two fathers, and love again, for it always comes back to that.”

“What baby-?” Alain-ghost asks sharply, and Tommy raises his hands, crooking his fingers in an eerie imitation of a spider’s legs. Jamie shudders a little at the sight of it.

“Just a little chap, poor thing,” Tommy murmurs. “One of many and many-a small victories. Little loves. Little rights. Little justices. Little but important, aye?”

“...that’s right,” Alain-ghost says slowly. Cuthbert is clutching onto Roland’s arm on the ghost’s other side- not frightened, no, Alain doesn’t think that Bert could ever be afraid of Alain, any Alain, but he seems horrified, all the same. “The little victories are just as important as the big ones, Tommy. They need to _know_ it. There’s still a chance, of course, that this is the last one, but-”

“Aye, but just in case,” Tommy agrees. “That bad old Man thinks he can trick us into considering Size in just one direction, he does. It’s infinite in _both_ directions, isn’t it?”

“It is, Tommy,” Alain-ghost sighs. “Remember, dear. Do you think that’s enough?”

“No,” Tommy says, and Alain-ghost looks surprised at him. “Tell me again. Tell me how we survived Jericho Hill.”

“Are you afraid that we won’t live past it next time?” he asks gently, and Tommy nods slowly. Alain-ghost reaches over, thumbs away the tears that his Thomas must have wept, then. Tommy leans into the touch of the ghostly hand, as the other Thomas must have done. “By the Grace of Gan, I suppose. I fell inches too far for any of the bullets to hit my heart or lungs or guts. The lightning-fire spooked Farson’s men, made cowards of some of them, perhaps, and the smoke from it is probably what saved Jamie, and Jamie saved you, and Roland and Bert were able to join you before the corpse-cart was set alight, and then you four came and saved me.”

Alain feels sick. He thinks if this were real- his real body, and not the sun-gold form he takes in Tommy’s mind- he would have thrown up by now.

“Aye, thank you, I think I can remember that,” Tommy breathes out. “Alain?”

“Yes?” Alain and Alain-ghost both ask, and for a moment Alain sees the ghost of his older self glance toward him, blinking.

“Sometimes I’m on the cart, too,” he says, in that dreamy-soft voice. “Sometimes I’m not dead, just a-lyin’ there weak from all my bones being broke, and I’m over Cuthbert, I’m right on top of Bertie and there’s an _arrow_ , Alain, I’m alive when they light it, I can smell it-”

“Tommy, no,” Alain-ghost breathes out, taking Thomas’s shoulders. “Tommy, stop, dear, don’t.”

“Sometimes he’s not dead, too, even with an arrow through the eye, just like he wasn’t _this_ time,” Tommy continues softly. Cuthbert looks like he’ll be as sick as Alain feels, and Roland’s face has gone carefully blank, his mouth in a trembling line that betrays his horror, and Jamie’s face is pressed against Alain’s chest, as if he can escape what they’re hearing. Tommy’s voice continues on, as if he was discussing some interesting flower, perhaps, or a passing bird that caught his eye once.

“Sometimes he and Roland crawls out, and I _try_ to tell them I’m alive, too, only they can’t hear me anymore, they can’t feel me anymore, Al, I can’t move my head and I can’t move my fingers for they’ve been snapped, I can breathe but it hurts, and I’m alive, I’m alive when the Troitans comes back with the spiced oil they use, I’m _alive_ when they light it, Alain, I’m alive when they burn me I can smell it Alain I can _smell_ it I’m not dead but I can’t move and I’m not dead and it hurts worse than anything else and I’m alive please I’m alive-”

“Tommy, wake up,” Alain-ghost says sharply, giving his Thomas a shake, and Tommy jerks in place, still mumbling. “Thomas, _wake up_ , right now. Do you hear me, Thomas? _Wake-_ ”

The ghost-light flickers away, disappears. Tommy blinks slowly, looking around.

“Got a little less nice at the end there,” he mutters sleepily.

“Christ and the Man _Jesus_ , Tommy!” Cuthbert cries out, half-laughing, tears standing in his eyes. “A little less nice, indeed!”

Jamie throws himself at Tommy, distress-beacon flashes dancing around him, and Tommy wraps an arm around him, looking a little less dazed.

“Come along, Tommy, we should go,” Roland says, reaching for them, stroking a hand back over Tommy’s shoulder. He is only a little shaky-sounding, but his eyes are wide and a little wild, and Alain can hear a snippet of his thoughts: _no more please no more not this please_.

“Can’t,” Thomas whispers into Jamie’s neck, giving Roland a sorrowful look. “Can’t, love, we can’t, s’not enough, we can’t go-”

“ _Why?_ ” Alain asks, but it’s Cuthbert who answers, his lively, lovely voice dulled by the realization.

“Because we’ve gotten this far before, haven’t we, Tommy? We’ve come all this way and heard you and Alain just now, and known what we know now, and it _still_ wasn’t enough,” he says, and after a moment Thomas nods.

“It’s not enough,” Thomas murmurs. Roland’s expression is stony- for a moment he looks very like his father- but then he nods, looking only like a grieving fifteen-year-old.

“We need to find a way for you to have this information sooner next time, if- if there’s a next time,” he says slowly, but here, in the landscape of Thomas’s mind, he can’t hide the mantle of hopeless doubt on his shoulders. “We could start earlier, try to… try to work towards changing things sooner.”

And Alain knows that he’s thinking of Susan, but Alain can’t help but think of what Tommy’d said- a single rose, David, a boy under a mountain- and of the fact that Marten’d been openly influencing the court for years, and who knows _how_ long he’d been in Gilead, shifting pieces and making connections, unseen and unheard?

“We need you to know as soon as possible,” Alain says faintly. “We need you to know and to tell someone, Tommy, as soon as-”

“ _No one will ever believe me_ ,” Thomas says harshly, and for a moment it’s not him at all, but _Marten_ , his voice and face so sudden and clear that Jamie startles back from him, and Roland’s hands dip toward nonexistent guns. Thomas gives him a helpless look, only Tommy again. “No one ever believes me, Alain, I’ve tried, _I’ve tried_ , no one ever believes me, and I die, every time, he kills me every time but it doesn’t matter for no one ever ever ever-”

And for a moment Thomas is younger- twelve, and very small, and his eyes are wide and glassy and his mouth is smeared with red where someone with bloody hands had covered his face to stop him from screaming, his stomach is open and red, his guts in his lap and steaming-

“Tommy, stop,” Alain cries out, and Thomas looks terrified, perhaps a little older now, red-purple-black bruises ringing his throat as his body blurs a little, small and naked Tommys, bloody and hunched Tommys, pale and broken Tommys, dozens of Tommys who died children, hundreds of them.

“-sent me West, sent me to the Doctor, sent me to the gaol, so many times, he’s always there and it always ends the same, I don’t live long enough to see Roland win his guns when I tell, they never believe me, no one ever believes me-”

Roland grabs hold of his face, and he solidifies, just one Tommy, just the Tommy who came with them.

“Listen, Tommy, listen,” he says, lightning crackling around him. “Do you hear me, Tommy?”

“A-aye,” he moans softly, shuddering.

“Marten’s not in the castle anymore,” he says confidently, though his confidence seems… unfounded, at that. “And we’ll tell this time, they _have_ to believe all of us.”

Jamie clutches Alain’s arm, his meaning passing like electric fire between them.

“What about next time?” Alain asks for him, his voice very-nearly Jamie’s, so that the other three startle and look between them, unsure of who’s speaking. “How do we keep it from happening that way next time?”

“We’ll all tell,” Roland whispers, looking older again- not like his father at all, but the Roland Alain saw on the beach, haggard and maimed. “We’ll stand together, and we’ll all tell. We won’t let them send you away, Tommy.”

Alain asks a question now, one of his own: “We can’t wait until I know how to bring us all in here to find this, though, how are we all going to know what to tell?”

Cuthbert gently reaches for his shoulder, his face more the movement of cloud over moonlight than his own features for a moment or two. “You might not know _now_ , but some Alains know, right Tommy?”

“Should think so,” Tommy agrees unsteadily. “Very wise and clever, is Alain.”

“Sometimes,” Alain says uneasily, and thinks of the standing-dead Thomases on the deck who kept slyly peeking at him when the others didn’t. “Do you think I would have told you this information, though? Do you think it’s somewhere here?”

“I’m not sure,” Tommy says slowly. “I don’t know if- what I need is- is a place where everyone’s been, who has left me things, then.” He brightens up a little bit. “It’s just outside.”

“What, in the garden?” Cuthbert asks weakly, but Alain can feel the change before he steps out of the cottage and sees it. The cottages no longer exist, or the garden with the wheeled chair. They are standing in a sunny, grassy field dotted with signposts- only, Alain’s unhappy to realize, it’s more a graveyard than not, all these hundreds or thousands of messages left behind by long-gone companions. Only some of them are recognizably Alain’s- some are very different, marked with symbols that don’t mean anything, or scribbled handwriting that Alain doesn’t think he could read if they weren’t in Tommy’s mind.

Thomas bends a little, picking up a child-sized sign, and grins at it. “Oh, my, what a lovely little girl.”

“A girl? Do you know her?” Roland asks softly, and Thomas hugs it a little before setting it back down.

“No, not rightly I don’t- I think I watch her grow up, I’m her Uncle Tommy, but she just wanted to tell me that she loves me, she hasn’t got as good a control of her Touch yet. She’ll learn,” he says fondly, before tramping out farther. “Alain teaches her.”

“I do?” Alain asks, and Tommy hums. A slim black shape slinks through the signs, before appearing close and circling Tommy- a cat, a well-loved and sleek one, who sniffs and headbutts Tommy’s leg until he gives it a pet.

“Oh, what a handsome fellow,” Bert remarks, and the cat looks over at him and immediately starts demanding his attention.

“That’s Catbert,” Thomas calls cheerfully over at them, and Alain and Jamie snort suddenly, for they can see the resemblance. “He’s a good fellow, isn’t he? He’s ‘round quite a bit, he likes to find us, for he knows us, you know. Cats know. Cats share between their lives.”

“Do they now?” Cuthbert says, picking Catbert up. Alain finds it harder not to think of them as HumanBert and CatBert. “He’s well-named, isn’t he? Yes, he surely is.”

“Tommy,” Jamie calls to him, and Thomas ambles over to him. Alain puts a hand on one of the signs with his own writing on it- the words and names are meaningless to him, _kameron et alain, prohibeo mortem suam_ \- and for a moment he can see in his mind’s eye: himself, a man but not as old as the man in Tommy’s earlier ghost-vision, and a spider-thin teenaged girl, reaching out and pleading, _you’ll remember, Tommy, won’t you? Don’t let him die like that, Tommy, please, you can’t_ -

-Alain draws his hand back with a slight shock, and they fade from view. It dawns on him, very slowly, that most of this field is just that: Thomas being begged not to let someone die. Thomas being told to save someone next time. How many of them are for the _same_ person or people? How many of them are for people none of them have ever met, will ever meet?

How many people couldn’t imagine that he wouldn’t there there for them on the next turn of the wheel? Alain can’t imagine it, himself. It does seem that the ka-tet as it stands, at least, doesn’t seem to have that problem, but-

His hand brushes against another one- again his own writing, carved jaggedly, hopelessly: _??alain?? ego autem obsecro_ \- and the ghost-light is Alain again, maybe only ten years older than he is now, his face bearded and drawn and streaked with tears of panic, Bert standing silently over his shoulder as he reaches for his Thomas, begging, _please remember tommy, please remember, you must remember gilead, you must remember me, you must_ -

Alain staggers and Roland catches his elbow, looking mildly concerned. It comes to Alain that Roland hadn’t seen- he would likely not have felt the wave of dread and shame that Alain feels, having seen it, but he would comment, surely, on their gabby and warm Cuthbert standing so silently chilled.

“Alright, Alain?” Roland inquires. Alain thinks of the look on that brief Cuthbert’s face- coolly and vaguely interested, as if he didn’t know the people he was looking down upon, and a little angry and self-satisfied, as if he was _glad_ \- but worst of all was the hollow-eyed, waxy look of his eyes and skin, far too like the standing-dead Thomases Alain saw on the deck, _exactly_ like the standing-dead Thomases he saw.

“Be glad to get out of here, I think,” Alain mutters, and Roland nods fervently at that. Up ahead, Tommy and Cuthbert join Jamie, peering down at a signpost. It’s different from the others, for it’s ringed and festooned with pretties- flower-chains, and thin strips of rawhide with gleaming shells and bits of seaglass strung onto them, childishly made necklaces that put Alain in mind of the cottages they’d seen, just now. The writing on the sign is in a careful, broad hand- the handwriting Thomas himself produces, when he is taking a special care to be legible, _guenevere, !memento!memento!memento!_

“Remember-remember-remember,” Tommy reads quietly. “Seems likely enough. Seems like I’d wanted to be sure I noticed it.”

“Who’s that?” Roland asks, pointing at the name, and Tommy only shrugs.

“A girl, I suppose,” he says slowly, and Bert cracks a smile, even goes so far as to start a joke- Alain can see it in the moonlight around and inside of him, something smart and pert about how he supposed there had to be at _least_ one Tommy who’d have a girl- but then Tommy touches the sign and gently grasps one of the necklaces, and the words die in Bert’s chest at the first twinkling of ghost-light.

The ghost-light is a girl, yes- a young girl, no more than five or six. The first dazzled thought Alain thinks is that she’s beautiful; the second is that she must be his older sister Claire, who’d always been fond of Tommy, or perhaps one of Claire’s children in a future-time. She’s soft and stout, with a round face and a small, round mouth, and a huge mop of dark curls, a little less wild than Alain’s.

Cuthbert’s eyes widen, as Tommy crouches solemnly to meet her, a sunny grin breaking out over his face.

“Oh, well-met, Uncle Tommy,” she says sweetly, raising her arms at him, and he laughs- not the laugh of a boy, no. For a moment he’s the uncle she must have grown up with, somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty or so, and he picks her up, beaming at her on his hip.

“Well enough indeed, Gwennie, have only been gone a few days yet, haven’t I?” he asks, and then he’s just Tommy, sixteen and smiling. “Got bigger, haven’t you? Be picking your old Uncle Tommy up soon y’self, I’ll wot!”

“Not yet!” she chirrups brightly. “Five year more, Da says!”

Tommy laughs, a little uneasily. “Your Papa? I suppose he’d know better’n I, but-”

“No, not Papa. Da’s the one that told me,” she says, and when she turns Alain gives a tiny start, for it seems like the old vision of a past life’s child is looking at _him_ direct- and then Alain sees that which had stopped Cuthbert up short. The girl is a Johns, no doubts about that, but that long, fine nose, those delicate high cheekbones, those lovely eyes- they’re a mirror to Cuthbert’s own. A thrill goes down Alain’s back at the thought, and a fist closes over his heart and gut at the realization that only some of these worlds ever held this child in them.

“Well, perhaps, perhaps,” Tommy says uneasily. “May very well be looking on at us from the Clearing right now, eh? That’s a… that’s a lovely idea, so ‘tis. What say you we-”

“Uncle Tommy, listen,” she says gravely, and he stops, patiently accepting a pair of perfectly-formed, pudgy little hands on his face, hushing him up. “Do you listen?”

“Aye,” he whispers- not comically serious, Alain sees at once, but taking the child at immediate value, and _gods_ , does he love Thomas for it.

“Da says it’s important,” she says, and again the uneasy look in his eyes, but he nods.

“If you say it’s important, lovey, it’s important,” he says gently. She appears to concentrate very, very hard on him for a moment.

“Da says…” She glances over at Alain again, and gooseflesh breaks out on his arms. “Not just you, Uncle Tommy. Uncle Ro, also.” And Tommy doesn’t laugh or smile, but Alain can see it in his face that he’s a little surprised to hear Roland mentioned so. “He says you both. He says it’s ka.”

“Does he?” he asks musingly, nosing against her round little cheek. “What’s he say, then, lovey?”

“He says you have to tie everything to a babby-memory, so you can wake up all new and remember everything quicky-like,” she recites dutifully. She looks up at him, adoring and mildly confused. “He says you can tie it up to the memory and lock it into your… ka-mind. Your ka-self. And wake it up, and then wake up Uncle Ro’s ka-mind, and Papa’s, and Da’s, and Uncle Jay.”

“Your-” Tommy’s brow furrows: not upset, but worry, mayhap a touch of wonder. “Who told you of your Uncle Jay, lovey? Did Papa tell you while I was-”

“No,” she says patiently, and wipes at tears that are already shining on Tommy’s face. “Da did. Why you crying, Uncle Tommy?”

“Wake up, Tommy,” Alain catches himself pleading, and she turns again, looks at him, then up at Tommy’s face. Even sketched out in ghost-light, the girl’s love and concern is open and apparent. On her other side, Jamie’s face is clouded over, thoughtful.

“I’ll _make_ you remember,” she says confidently. “Only don’t cry so, Uncle Tommy, it makes me sad.”

“I’m sorry to make you sad, peaseblossom,” he says, smiling weakly. “Am not sad myself, though! Tears of… of gladness, that you know a little bit of your Da and your Uncles, Gwen. Shall I tell you a little of them before we get home to Papa, then?”

He’s not a talented liar as a teenager, but as a thirty-year-old man, he can convince the little girl who clearly adores him.  

The ghost-girl twinkles out. Tommy looks exhausted, drawing a hand down his face as soon as his arms are no longer holding her.

“Is that Guenevere, then?” Roland asks, gesturing at the sign. “An ill-omened name, don’t you think?”

“I think it’s sweet,” Cuthbert snaps at him, and their dinh blinks slowly at him, before shrugging, open-palmed. “What would thee-” He pauses, a hurt look on both his and Roland’s faces, and Alain’s heart aches. “What would _you_ know about such, Roland?”

“Nothing, Bert,” he admits quietly.

Tommy and Jamie- holding hands, looking almost peacefully happy if not for the eeriness of their surroundings- give them matching concerned glances.

“Alright?” Tommy asks, and after a moment Bert and Roland nod shortly at him. He turns his worried gaze to Alain, who nods in agreement.

“Do you think that is what we needed?” Tommy asks shyly.

 _Tie everything into a memory and lock it into your ka-mind_. Alain thinks for a moment or two, then nods, reaching out to gently touch one of the little shell-baubles that he’s almost _certain_ his one-day daughter put here.

“I might not be able to do it yet, but I think I know how to make such a thing possible,” he says carefully- he doesn’t want to disappoint Tommy, now _or_ later, but the truth is, he thinks there are a number of ways he could go about doing it. Alain glances over at Bert, who seems intent on not meeting his eyes.

“Should go back out, then,” Roland says firmly. “Or we’ll miss dinner. We’ve already missed luncheon, I’m sure of it.”

“Mm, alright,” Tommy agrees, leading Jamie by the hand towards what looks, to Alain, like a random direction. He’s sure they couldn’t possibly be very close to the beach where they first came from the waters of Tommy’s mind-

-only after a few short steps, far too few and far too short for Alain to even clear the edge of the great graveyard-like field- they are on the beach again, and Tommy is stomping happily in the sand.

Alain follows him up the ramp onto the Tommy-boat. The skies are still terrible and beautiful echoes of Tommy’s countless lives, and when he runs his hand over the carved wood- his fingertips brushing a design he recognizes from the tattoo on Thomas’s back, now- the boat rocks happily and the waters sparkle. Alain looks around one last time, soaking in what love makes Thomas see in his ka-tet: a fey and darkling boy made of stormclouds and lightning and a hard, high wind; a beautiful boy made of concentrated stars and velvet night with brilliant moonlight dancing between his teeth and fingers; a radiantly lovely boy made of the place where the waters meet the sand, tumbling waves and chuckling brooks in every smile and tilt of his eyes.

Tommy looks over at him, grinning fondly, and Alain grins back at him.

“Why don’t we wake up and fetch ourselves something to eat, then, Tommy?” he asks, and for a moment he’s all Tommys, each of them flashing a small, happy smile at him.

“Yes,” Tommy says from all around them, the boat practically skipping across the surface of the lagoon now. “Let’s.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4 warnings/tags: rape, finger/hand injury and dismemberment, strangulation, beheading, canon-typical reports of war crimes, todash travel, todash space, Eddie Dean/Toren, Jake Chambers/Toren, traumatic khef-sharing

Some things are the same, and some things happen differently: Roland’s father passes the great guns of his inheritance down at a Welcoming Feast, and Roland’s mother is there, smiling wetly at him. Alain and Cuthbert are awarded their first guns for the magnitude of their service in Mejis, as relayed by the gunslinger they’d traveled with. The younger classes don’t disband, though their lessons are greatly abbreviated. Their ka-tel shrinks, but instead of thirteen graduates at sixteen years old, there are nineteen boys there, and they’re all seventeen- Thomas, though, is not among them: he is granted his guns in a ceremony shortly after Alain and Cuthbert gain theirs, for saving the life and soul of a gunslinger and for defeating one of the Empathica-brood that nested inside a seeing-glass. Cort and Vannay and his ka-tet are there; his father is there, but it’s Robert Allgood who claps him to his chest after the ceremony ends, and Lavinia Allgood who kisses his cheeks with shining eyes.

Thomas waits, and news does reach Gilead, every so often- Debaria conquered and its Abbey razed to the ground, the ground opening at John Farson’s feet and vomiting up what the few survivors called “a silvery, wailing fog that ate friend and foe alike.”

Colton Whitman presents Thomas with his guns: no ceremony, no one else around to witness it. He does not tell him much about the gunslinger-knight who’d first wielded them in Arthur Eld’s long-ago court, just that Parsifal had been a youth of sixteen, the same age as Thomas, when he’d been granted the guns. Thomas asks Vannay, eventually, who tells him a little more.

Roland tells Thomas what he saw inside the Pink: visions of his ka, of their tet’s ka- the Dark Tower. Thomas is not surprised, for he is sixteen most times that Roland tells him of their ultimate quest; what surprises him is that he and Roland are sitting inside the castle walls, surrounded by light and life, when he tells him.

Thomas takes his needles from Cort, and even gives his old teacher a tattoo- something Cort calls an oro-borus, a snake rolled round into a circle and biting onto its own tail, right across the back of Cort’s left hand. And when he turns seventeen, he does as he always does, and asks Jamie to pick out a tattoo for him, and a place for it to go- only instead of a man in one of the many nameless towns they travel to during a long exile, it is a tattooist within Gilead’s borders who inks the crossed guns onto the side of his neck.

Some things happen differently, but they still happen: Thomas doesn’t know _how_ it can be a relief when Gilead falls, just before he and Alain turn nineteen, and is ashamed to realize it’s because he’d spent almost three years expecting it to happen around every other corner.

He and Jamie are hurrying to help people escape- Cuthbert’s mother is with Alain’s sister Claire, who had been the last of his kin to stay within Gilead’s walls after his oldest sister married and left for safety with her family- and searching out for survivors of the first attack, when a door opens and a man with a doctor’s bag slung over one shoulder steps out into the stone hallway.

“Come along,” Dr. DeCurry says impatiently to them, “they’re breaching the walls, climbers have-”

Thomas doesn’t wait to find out what the climbers have done. He raises his black-handled six-shooter- the sandalwood wrapped in leather to protect his poor old silly hands- and blows the doctor’s knee to smithereens, and the doctor tumbles to the stone floor.

“Someone should have put you down a long time ago,” Thomas says softly, over the doctor’s outraged shrieks of agony. He raises his gun again, and the doctor bares his teeth at him, like a snarling dog.

“You simpleminded _fuck_ , you-” he starts, and whatever else he has to say dies on his tongue with him, as Jamie’s bullet finds his heart.

_He died trying to speak his piece_ , Thomas remembers Roland saying, long ago, and Cuthbert’s distant assessment: _it was good_.

“Fuck you,” Jamie says to the corpse of what had only by a technicality been his father. Thomas bends to scoop up the doctor’s bag, and Jamie is crying, but only a little, and when Thomas reaches out to him through their shared _khef_ Jamie can meet his eyes, taking his offered hand.

“Let’s go,” Thomas says simply, for there are people they still need to save, and the journey over the next few days, he knows, will be harsh and punishing.

There’s never any word of Colton Whitman’s final fate, but he is assumed to die sometime during the second assault. No great loss.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~  

Thomas thinks- he hopes- that the delay in Gilead’s fall means that they will all be older before the shadow of Jericho Hill falls over their ka-tet. He imagines another nine-year exile; he imagines seeing his twenty-eighth birthday.

There doesn’t seem to be a difference in the numbers- the survivors, the victories, the defeats- by the time Thomas is twenty-four years old. Dread lies heavy over his heart: he knows that very little is different, here at the end. The only real difference, as far as he can see, is that Lavinia Allgood- the last of any of their parents, somehow still living with them in their exile- is here to bandage his wounds while Claire attends to her brother and gently harangues him- half spoken and half Touch-sent, for she is similarly gifted.

Thomas’s eyes close as Cuthbert’s mother (she’s insisted for years that he call her Lavinia, but he’s far too bashful to do so) cleans a roughly bruised and abraded wound high on his back, humming a familiar tune as she dabs something pleasantly cool into it. It’s not until she starts to carefully bandage the injury- gained when he was thrown bodily into a wooden wall by an agent of the Good Man who’d been hiding out in a half-abandoned town- that she starts to softly sing some of the words.

“ _Poor wand’ring one, though thou hast surely strayed-_ ”

Thomas sits bolt upright, accidentally knocking off the beginnings of the bandage. “What’s that, Lady Vinnie-sai?”

“Tommy, dear,” she says in a scolding tone. “Hold still. And you know what I’ve said about you boys calling me Lady.”

Alain gives him a concerned look, his eyes wide over his rich, golden beard. Claire snorts, but quietly- she and Lavinia Allgood are the only two people alive who get away with calling any of these gunslingers _boys_.

“Yes, Vinnie-sai,” Thomas mumbles, blushing furiously. “But- that song, I know it, my mother used to, um, you know-”

“Ah, yes,” she murmurs, giving his shoulder a comforting pat before she starts again on applying the bandage to his back. “Tis an ancient song of the Old People, you know.”

“Is it?” Thomas wants desperately to move, to bounce to his feet and pace, and knows that she will not be pleased if he interrupts her work again. “How do you know it?”

“The same way your dear mother learned it, sweet boy- it was one of the many hymns sung by the Sisters at Our Lady of the Rose.” She sighs a little, her hands moving briskly. “Your mother was a particularly good singer, and there’s an aria at the end of the song that she particularly excelled at. And- you’ll excuse me for saying so, Tommy, but your mother was quite a bit like my Cuthbert, in that she loved being the center of attention, particularly for something that fell within her range of talents.”

“ _Really_?” Thomas asks, faintly delighted at the thought of a lady- a big lady with big hands and an enormous pile of chestnut hair like his, but with Cuthbert’s starlight-and-moonshine personality, singing from the depths of her heart in front of a flock of white-robed Sisters. “You and my mother are friends, Vinnie-sai?”

“Well- we had been,” Lavinia says slowly, giving his back a pat. “You may put your shirt back on, Tommy. And, yes, dear, we were friends once. We didn’t stay friendly after she left you and your father, though, for I was deeply shocked that she’d left in the first place, and she never replied to my only- and, truth be told, _very_ angrily-worded- letter.”

Thomas pulls his shirt on, his hands shaking slightly. “But you were friends before that, aye?”

“Yes, Tommy,” she says gently, catching his eye with a smile as she gets up to leave. “Just as I’m your friend now, dear.”

Thomas turns this over in his mind, pacing a little bit until Claire- sensing his wordless urge to be alone with her brother- tells them that she’s going to see if any other silly boys got hurt today. As soon as she’s gone he flops bodily onto Alain’s lap.

“Yowch, Tommy,” Alain complains mildly- his chest and stomach were badly bruised and one of his ribs cracked, but luckily nothing requiring Jamie’s more serious services.

“Can you do the ka-memory for me, Al?” Thomas pleads, and Alain- too close to him to be surprised by the request, and too used to hearing the request itself- sighs a little.

“Another one, Tommy? It’s only been a few months since we last did-”

“Oh, please, Alain?” Thomas asks, catching hold of Alain’s hand. “This one will work for sure, though. Tying it to the song, see? I’ve heard it all my life, and she sings it to me when I’m very, very small, and I _know_ this one will work, for sure I know it.”

Alain gives him a tired smile- it’s so lovely, even when he’s hurt and exhausted, like the sun peeking through windswept clouds, like beams of golden sunlight through a passing thunderhead, like a hot, sweet mug of dark tea warming his hands on a cold day.

“That’s beautiful, Tommy,” Alain murmurs, reaching out to stroke his other hand down Thomas’s face. “Of course I’ll do it, dear.” Thomas turns toward his palm, pressing a soft kiss against the inside of his wrist, and he smiles again. “Should I do it now for you, then?”

Thomas hesitates, then nods. He doesn’t want to say out loud that he thinks they won’t get a chance to do it again before they die at Jericho Hill, but Alain winces as if he had.

“It- maybe it won’t be so bad this time,” Thomas says haltingly. “May very well be that some of us lives this time, aye? Things have changed in this When. It may- it may not be the same as other times.”

“Of course, Tommy,” Alain agrees, absentmindedly stroking a thumb over Thomas’s cheek. “Alright, then, this shouldn’t take too long, dear.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There is no storm. Thomas frets about it- there is no storm, or any sign of lightning, and therefore no lightning-fire to spook Farson’s men or create the smokescreen that saves Jamie’s life. Thomas remembers that it’s the sniper-general, aye, General Grissom, who kills Jamie most times, and can see how the smoke would be useful- only there’s no sign that there will _be_ any.

It’s brilliant, lovely Cuthbert who gently tells him that _of course_ , there is _still_ a way, even if it means setting the fire themselves- and he and Roland and Alain nod in grim agreement, as they often do when they recall some past feat of murder they’d done together. And Alain, clever and good Alain who can feel through his Touch where the best place to lay such a fire down might be, volunteers to set it down- and for an hour or two, no more than that, Thomas is deeply relieved, for he won’t be going in the direction of the enemy encampment, and he will be back before nightfall.

The sun is still shining overhead when the mists rise up- at first Thomas thinks it’s smoke from Alain’s fire, but it leaves his face cold and dripping, and doesn’t rattle sharply in his chest the way woodsmoke can. It bodes ill for their chances if the weather is going to turn too wet for a fire but not stormy enough for lightning, but he tries to keep his mood up, regardless.

He keeps watch for a while with Claire, mostly because she’s keen enough to feel for anything that means them harm, and when Cuthbert and Roland take over for them he feels… not relieved, no, not at all.

_It’s dark when it happens_ , he thinks fervently to himself. _It’ll be dark. Just don’t let them stay out at watch after dark- insist they swap with you, do anything you can to do it_.

He has just enough time to sink into Jamie’s arms in nervous, thrumming exhaustion before twin thunderclaps burst through the foggy afternoon- just four gunshots in all, too overlapped to be anything but both of them firing.

Thomas’s insides curdle with a dreadful certainty as he helps Jamie up to his feet. He knows what he’ll see when Bert and Roland come back- and aye, there he is, their Alain, their poor dear Alain, limp and bloody in their arms, but still, somehow and miraculously, groaning softly in pain. Roland and Cuthbert both look the same way Thomas feels- sorrowful, and guilty, and near to vomit.

“We didn’t see-” Cuthbert moans quietly, tears already streaming down his long and lovely nose as he bends over Alain. “We didn’t-”

Thomas claps a hand over his mouth, because what he wants most to do is to burst into sobbing laughter- it _was_ different, after all, aye, Alain’s execution moved up a full eight hours earlier, their poor, poor Alain suffering greatly instead of what had been a quick death otherwise.

Poor Claire is at Alain’s side now, and Jamie has the much-battered doctor’s bag open, and everyone is crowding close to, doing what they can to help, to try to give Alain whatever chance he might have of surviving-

-until when, exactly? Even if they cry off this battle and flee, the Sapphire Eye will see them, won’t it? Even if they flee this place in safety, there is no safety, not for them, never for them!

Unless- unless-!

The idea springs half-formed to his mind, and he quickly smashes it down, for any thought can be seen, by _someone_ or another, and he builds another one up in its place: he can only but beg, can he not? He can beg, aye. He can beg and plead, and he can beg the one who’s responsible for-

-well, not for all of this, no, even now he won’t beg the Man, not now or ever, not after all that’s happened, not after everything he can remember of him, of the way the Man craves the sound of his begging, every time, over and over-

-but who leads this army, then? What general orders their deaths, and sends hot death into his beloved’s skull, then?

There won’t be much time, Thomas reckons. No, not at all.

He gently unbuckles his gunbelts and lays them on Jamie’s bedroll. He thinks he’s told Jamie before, what little he knows himself: Parsifal, who’d been a young and pure knight of the court of Eld. He won’t have time to repeat it, but perhaps Jamie will remember and know.

It is no work at all to slip away from the camp, while his friends- aye, his family- toil to save Alain’s life.

He finds his feet know the way themselves. Has this happened before? Has he done this before, or something similar, mayhap? He must stifle this worry, too, and concentrates on what he will do, what he will say. He immediately dismisses his own inclinations. What would _Bert_ say?

A long-ago other-When memory, a lovely girl, the two of them naked in a grand bed somewhere: _he’s more likely still to speak plainly when he wants to shock and flirt_. Was that Aileen, her face pressed to his shoulder, her hand over the Rose on his heart? Aye, he thinks it was, and she was lovely, lovely, lovely, and it seems such a shame none of his friends ever got to meet her. But she was also right, wasn’t she? Not just about Bert, but about what this kind of situation calls for: directness. And there can’t be any shyness about it either, for he’s coming to beg for the lives of his friends, and the only currency he has is what- and who- he’s willing to do for it. He’s done it before, he knows how, he just- he just didn’t imagine this, before now.

Thomas swallows a little as he creeps, his mouth pressed into a miserable line as he realizes that he’s going to have to _say_ the word _cock_ , out loud and to another living person, most likely in front of other people. He isn’t sure that he’s ever managed to do that, even in private, for it flusters and horrifies him, so it does. He doesn’t want to stumble and fail at the very end of his task, though, so he sets himself to practice, mumbling it over and over to himself as he stalks through the forested area between their camps.

“It’s just a word,” he whispers to himself, and finally forces it out, half between his teeth: “ _Cock_ , that’s- that’s what I aim to say, that’s what people call it, can’t go up and ask to suck someone’s you-know-what, they’d laugh before they kilt me, aye, have to tell them that I’m here to suck on, on a- on his c-cock, that’s the word, aye.”

Even the practice makes his stomach clench, and he lets himself just think it for the time being, for trying to actually say it again might make him give up and flee, and it’s too late for that now.

_It will be worth it if it buys Jamie another day_ , he thinks to himself, and every part of him aches for it to be yesterday, when he still could be near his Jamie, aye. But that is over with, at least for now, at least for this When.

_We had it once,_ he remembers, and tears trickle down his face and drop off the edge of his jaw despite himself. _We had it once. A life together by the sea, close by the waters, warmth and safety and the two of us together, aye_.

He wonders if Alain might live a little while longer. He wonders if Claire and Lavinia will live past tomorrow. He wonders if some or all or any of his friends will have a life after this, after his ends, and he wishes sorely that he could see it, that he could know that this will work, but-

-well, there’s no sureness, is there? Only that he must try and try and try, every time, every life, every chance he gets.

He is sure to have his hands open and raised to face-height long before he nears the camp, and he wonders distantly if his absence has been noticed yet. He hopes not. He hopes everyone is still focused on Alain, on helping him live.

Someone shouts something in the deeply confusing language the Troitans use, and he falters, for even not knowing what word means _halt_ he’s sure of the tone in that command.

“Hands raised, not comin’ to shoot anyone,” he says softly, without any hope of being heard or understood, taking another hesitant step forward. “Please maybe only if someone speaks the Low Speech I could possibly tell’em what I’ve come for, definitely please don’t beat old Tommy to death yet, sais-”

More of that jabbering language, then a barking shout- “Halt!”

“Oh, thank the gods,” Thomas mumbles, halting in place. “Am halted, see?”

“Don’t move,” the shouter snaps- he blinks once, lowering his eyes a little. The watchman comes out from behind cover, an arrow notched in a short bow and pointed his way. “What’ve ye come for, trespasser?”

“Come for parley, I have,” he says desperately, too embarrassed to tell this new stranger what he means by it. “Please, I- I just- only a few moments, please, I’ve come to parley is all.”

“Disarm, Canaanite,” the man says coldly. Thomas gapes at him, unsure of how to proceed if he’s not allowed to move, and the man gestures briskly. “Do it or be shot.”

“Said don’t move,” he protests helplessly. “D’you mean I’m to move now, then?”

“Yeh have two _seconds_ to disarm,” the man snaps, and he hurriedly pats himself down, but his gunbelts are gone, and the short knife in his boot- mostly for whittling things when he’s bored, or cutting up small fruits and berries fine- is quickly tossed aside. The man’s eyes narrow. “That ain’t all ye’re carryin’ to battle.”

“No, sai, came here unarmed,” he says tremulously. “Came for to parley, sai, with- with the General Grissom, you see. Didn’t want to look like I were comin’ with ill intent and all, so I left my guns at my camp.”

The arrow doesn’t lower, and Thomas has enough time to realize, his heart sinking, that he’s never going to get so far as asking to see anyone’s cock at all, if he can’t get past this watchman-

“Let the boy through,” a man says laughingly- the Man, Thomas realizes, and his heart sinks even lower. “He wants to-” And another tittering laugh, and Thomas has a terrible suspicion that the Man knows what he aims to ask for, “-he wants to beg the General for the lives of his friends, does he not?”

“Aye, I do,” he says softly, eyes narrowing. He is not Martenfaced now, though how Thomas can tell, he isn’t sure. The forest is darkening as afternoon fades, and he gives the Man his full attention. “Unless- _you’re_ not General Grissom, surely?”

At this both the Man and the watchman laugh.

“No, little gun, I am most assuredly not,” he snickers, and Thomas doesn’t say that he wouldn’t trust this Man to assure him of anything, ever- but still, the Man grins in response, his teeth a slash of white in the graying shadows. “And what currency do you hold, I wonder, to beg and demand mercy for your ka-tet?”

_this is you at your best_

Thomas straightens his shoulders, his hands trembling at his sides. “I think you know.”

“Oh, I do, o lost and wandering one, but do _you_?” He doesn’t give Thomas a chance to respond, an icy hand snaking out and grasping a fistful of his bound hair from the back of his head, forcing him forward a few steps. “Come along, then, and we will see how much you’re worth in gunslinger blood. Won’t be much, I’ll wager.”

Thomas knows he never imagined that this would go painlessly or smoothly, but it feels like a worrying start. He sees through his stinging and blurring eyes that other soldiers and Troitans are peeking out of their tents and gathering in clusters to watch him be marched by the hair toward their general’s tent, and wishes once more that this could have been- well, at least more private, if not a matter totally between himself and General Grissom-

“Oh, Tommy-boy, it was never going to be _very_ private,” the Man says cheerfully, shaking him a little with a vicious snap of his wrist. “At least not this part, for I’d certainly not want to give up the chance to see the looks on your faces when you ask the general if you could pretty-please gobble a cock in exchange for a cease-fire.”

“I don’t-” Thomas wheezes out, stumbling over the uneven soil and blinking back tears against the sudden sharp pain in his scalp. “I don’t-”

“Of course you don’t understand,” the Man says soothingly. “You’re not clever or gifted, my friend, it’s safe to say that nobody would have ever saved you for what little bits of fluff and garbage rattle around in that head of yours. Luckily for me, that emptiness is just the thing for a man with a decent amount of power- why, surely your little friend has noticed, even if you haven’t, that you’re some sort of natural amplifier. A facilitator, our once and future palsy-walsy Teddy might say. Oh, just imagine- well, _you_ can’t, but-”

He gives Thomas a shove, through the open flap of a broad, low tent, releasing his hold on him as he does.

Thomas lands hard and on his already-protesting knees, and there is an angry-looking person in a kilt before him- well, most of the people that he’d passed by were some combination of angry and kilt-wearing, but this person is wearing a leather vest- the laces down the front loose and open, showing a broad band of tattooed skin down over the curves of her breasts and over her belly, down past her belt. The effect is _deeply_ fascinating, for there’s quite a lot of evenly-shaded green in her tattoo ink, and it’s a color he’s ever had trouble getting to that particular leafy shade.

“Ye’d better had a good reason fer this,” she snaps, and Thomas’s eyes dart to her face, for he thinks he saw something confusing about her mouth- and then she bares her teeth in a mocking snarl, and he sees at once that they’ve all been filed to points.

“Go on, Tommy-boy, why don’t you tell Lady Grissom why you’ve come? Go ahead and give that Bachelorette a rose,” the Man laughs, and Thomas winces.

“W-well,” he starts, and realizes to his horror that having practiced it so much now he simply _has_ to say it, “a-and, you surely will think me a very… a very silly Tommy, aye, only I thought… see, I- I thought could be, um- well, could… could be that we’d not… have to fight? Only, I thought, see, I could try an’- try and be convincing, like. Thought I’d, ah-” He knows she’s rapidly losing patience with him, and only given him this much time because the Man is laughing too hard to be told to drag him back out.

Thomas sighs miserably, looking at the ground between his knees.

“Well, Lady-sai, I came and thought, as it’s General Grissom’s m- _fighters_ , um, who I’m expecting to be in the battle come sunup, I thought I’d… parley, see, and ask of G-General Grissom that the lives of… of my people could….”

“No, no, go on, tell General Grissom what you _seriously_ came here to offer in exchange for the lives of the last of New Canaan,” the Man laughs, a hard and cruel edge to his voice. Tommy winces, unable to look up.

“Came to see if giving your cock a suck would improve their odds any,” Thomas mumbles to the ground. After a moment, Grissom- a small lady in most ways, smaller of stature than even his Jamie is- crouches with her arms over her thighs.

“There’s a devastatin’ flaw in yer logic, cully,” she says seriously.

“Please,” Thomas says, looking up at her- he doesn’t want to start crying, not after managing to avoid it all this way, and he knows it’s an ugly and spineless thing for a man to do. “Please, Lady-sai, I don’t have- I don’t have much as what I’m good for, nor anything that’s of value, I know, but I’d do what I can, sai. I’d do anything to save them, so I would.”

The Man is still laughing- laughing even harder, at that. “You’d do anything to try, at least!”

Thomas searches Grissom’s face for any sign of- of pity, perhaps, or mercy, or even just simple understanding. She turns a cold eye to him, though, her mouth set in a line.

“Not one o’your best, as far as jokin’ goes, Farson,” she grits out.

“I’m not joking, Lady-sai,” Thomas says, blinking. “Not named Farson either, no. Am Thomas Whitman, of Colton and Verise, sai.”

“He’s slow,” the Man giggles. “You’ll have to forgive him that. A fairly decent fuck, if you can stand all the crying and stream-of-consciousness poetry.”

Thomas thinks Grissom understands the Man better than he does, but the flat look in her eyes tells him that perhaps not _very_ much.

“Please,” Thomas whispers again, for he doesn’t know what else to say, his face prickling hot and his throat threatening to close up entirely. “I know not what you even _want_ with killing what’s left of us but please, Lady-sai, please-”

“I’d hear this’n out,” she says abruptly. “In what privacy ye’d give us, Farson.”

“Getting a little bit of your own back, eh?” Thomas cannot see the Man, but he _sounds_ like he’s winking. “Just as long as you leave enough for me to play with when you’re done, then.” An icy hand tousles his already-mussed hair, hard enough to knock his head around.

A horrifying dread rolls through Thomas- he has no idea what he’s meant to do, for though he’s seen naked bodies of all general shapes before, that’s all most of them ever are: just shapes, interesting and pretty shapes to look at and sketch, and the ones attached to the people he cares for most just happen to be the best ones, aye. The act of sex isn’t exactly a mystery, but he can’t imagine the things he’s done being... applicable to this situation. He has an idea that pleading complete and utter ignorance at the last moment won’t be particularly accepted by the fang-mouthed general.

“W-well, I-” Thomas tries to start, his hands shaking so badly that he barely can open the throat of his shirt. He has an idea that he should take his shirt off, for this sort of thing.

“Cut it with that shite,” she snaps, and he can’t help but feel relieved despite the dismay coursing through him now. He chances a look up at her again, but her face is still cold and unmoved. “How many’ve ye killed of mine, Canaanite, and to sit here an’ say y’don’t know _what for_?”

“Fighting under Farson’s banner,” Thomas says slowly, wondering what it is she’s thought he’d believed. “Him as what poisoned the food stores of an entire town so that every man, woman, and child there died all a-misery. Him as what raked through whole towns and baronies, sai, draggin’ out their children first, and if they was lucky they’d be trampled down in front of their families, for it’s said he could take _days_ to kill a child as what struck his eye right. Him that burned our home to the ground, and has laid chase to our heels ever since.”

“And ye’d try to claim the Affiliation were a more _civilized_ band a’men, then?” she spits, and he doesn’t say he could, for he knows what he does about Dr. DeCurry, about Roland’s parents, about his own father.

“Can’t say what our fathers or their fathers was or wasn’t, sai,” he says, rocking back slightly. “Only that my guns can’t tell any difference ‘tween them as wants to kill me today and them as tried yesterday.”

She stands abruptly, spitting onto the ground- not at him or near him, thank goodness, but off to one side.

“O’course yer one of them _gunslingers_ ,” she mutters darkly.

“Aye, there’s some as argue against it, but aye,” he says cautiously. “Lady-”

“That ain’t my gods-beshitted name, is it?” she snarls, pacing in front of him.

“General-sai, I mean,” he corrects, and she hisses at him like a cat but allows it to pass by. “I don’t know _what_ you want or what you gain of this. _None_ of us that’s left knows. None of us was older’n nineteen when Gilead fell, save for Al’s sister’n Bert’s mother, who wasn’t allowed to know on account of worry that spies could reach for them. We _don’t know_ why you kill us and our kin, ‘cept for some idea that you folk have joy of it, and that only because we’ve come to places where refugees and survivors has gathered up and spoken of… of what you and yours do to towns that don’t fall to John Farson’s heel. So far’s we know you kill and rape and burn for the _joy_ of it.”

Thomas hesitates, watching the hard lines of her short, muscular body as she paces. “If it isn’t so, General, I beg of you now to tell me. I’d do anything in my power to save what’s left, but I can’t try without knowing what you’d want of us.”

“You lie,” she says, her voice rough.

“No, General-sai,” he says simply. “Him that was here just moments past- who I know from my childhood-times as Marten- would tell you straight enough that I’ve got no brains for it, I’ll wot. And even if I had, it don’t sit right on my face when I try, and my heart won’t allow it.”

“Oh, yer bleedin’ little _heart_ ,” she says mockingly, and he puts his face in his hands. “How weepy-sad for all us sinners, that more men of the Affiliation-that-was didn’t have such hearts afore they came for me an’ mine.”

“It is _very_ sad,” he says softly. “But killing twenty-two refugees from the Affiliation doesn’t undo whatever ill was done t’you, General-”

“No, an’ nothin’ will,” she agrees flatly. “But revenge is a reward to itself, is it not?”

“I don’t know, for I’ve never done it,” he says, and looks up at her again. “But it’s not the _only_ reward, is it?”

She stops pacing, her eyes still cold, her face still hard as she looks at him. “There’s no reward but justice, our due right-”

“Am only a simple, silly Tommy,” he presses. “So says everyone. Maybe you can make me understand it. Does justice come out of the mouth of John Farson, then? Or did he promise you something that could only be paid for in the blood of Gilead’s last children?”

“If ye’re simple I’m the man ye’d thought me,” she says angrily. “What’s it to yer, then? Y’can’t sow guilt on a bed of stone, and for what we’ve done and what we’ll do, payment’s been made, aye, and agreed-on. Would yon high-born Canaanites so quickly stab the back of one who’d been patron and partner, then?”

“Well,” Thomas sighs. “I can’t say, for I think you know well as me that not everyone who wore the guns and carried our flag was a good person-” She snorts loudly at that. “-but General-sai, I only know what I and what’s left of my loved ones would do, and the moment someone asked me to dash out the brains of a little baby or rape its mother till she died of it would be the moment I shot him, agreement or no.”

“ _Lies_ again,” she snaps, and Thomas gives her a small frown.

“No, sai. The husband survived to tell us,” he says simply. “You’re the general here, though, and that stain is yours as much as it is the dogs that did it to them. Did you think you was serving some better or higher good by ripping sleeping children from their beds, sai? Did you think _we’d_ fight and risk our mums and sisters on these shrinking battlefields if it _wasn’t_ to fight a monster?”

“Tis a high an’ undeserved horse you find yerself ridin’, ain’t it?” She sounds less angry, though not much less. “May be somethin’ in what you say, at that, for our seeing-glass has shown much of what’d happen if we failed. Can ye kennit, then? The failure t’kill what’s left of fallen Gilead bears its own cost, too high to risk for even a pack of young killers and their mummies and sissies.”

“Did your seeing-glass tell you that you could trust the man who brought me not to betray you to John Farson?” Thomas asks mildly. “There wasn’t a seeing-glass in Gilead when he came to my home and set father against son and son against mother, or when he betrayed Gilead to Farson, or when he took me as an untried boy-”

“The lies do _stack_ ,” she interrupts. “That man _is_ John Farson, cully, though I suppose ye’d be forgiven for not knowin’ that man’s face.”

“I _know_ that Man’s face,” Thomas says sharply, though the urge rising in him now is to either cry or giggle helplessly. “Aye, I know him, just as I know his voice very well, know the feel of his corpse-cold hands, know the feel of that monstrous icy cock and his mouth and his teeth, aye. If John Farson’s another name for him then that I can believe, but don’t say to _me_ I don’t know who that Man is.”

He realizes that he’s managed to say cock out loud _two_ whole times, now, and he has to scrub furiously at his eyes to keep them from running.

“The glass don’t show him turnin’ on us,” Grissom says quietly, “so long’s we do what he wants.”

“And somehow there’s always something more he wants,” Thomas mutters. “Aye, a _very_ honorable and equitable master you’ve sold your people to, General-”

The blow is hard enough to knock him over, and a deeply painful surprise. His ears are ringing and he’s blinking back stars for what feels like several minutes, before he can force his eyes to focus on her, on the shape of her fist- her right, he sees, and it does make sense, for most folk use their right naturally, unlike daft old wrong-handed Tommy.

“Captives’re taken for slaves, stripped of their weapons, and given to those who fought hardest,” she says curtly. “Which of yer friends’d be thankful for that life, then? Which of your friends wouldn’t try an’ fail to kill his way out, aye, and then die anyway?”

“But _why_ capture them at all? Why not let them go, let them run?” Thomas asks, and he won’t be able to stop himself from crying, not at all. He knows that merely letting them go on their ways would bring the anger of the Man on her tribe, and that it’s a terrible fate she won’t risk being laid onto her people now that she knows it’s there. He knows that this is all something Roland should have thought of, and Roland’s father before him, and he knows that Roland would never _consider_ surrender, and surely wouldn’t hesitate to throw himself and the last of his people into the fire for the sake of dead Gilead’s honor.

“Even if we could or did,” she says, her voice bare of emotion. “Surely ye know that we’d find’em again, and again this day’d be happenin’ only without some cryin’ boy in my tent beggin’ for another chance.”

Thomas draws his hands down his face, shuddering as he lets himself start to think of the other thing he came here to do.

“Y’didn’t think that comin’ in on yer knees and givin’ a general a suck would have bought the lives of all twenty-two,” she says quietly, almost accusingly, and he sniffles, shaking his head.

“No, not all,” he admits, hating himself and hating the way the words easily make themselves in his mouth. “Maybe only the one.”

“Tell me,” she says, not quite a command yet. “Tell me of this one, then.”

“His name,” Thomas sighs, looking down at his tattooed hands, “is Jamie. He’s… oh, he’s lovely. When I was-” He huffs a tiny laugh. “When I was just a very small Tommy and my mother was- when she still- when she-” He trails off, looking up at General Grissom’s face. “She was from the sea, and she skippered her own boat most of her life, and captained a ship before she came to be married to my, my father. Not many people would tell me about her after she was gone, but it’s said I look like her, aye, save for my father’s nose here. Tall as me or taller, too, and ate better, and same hair, it’s been said.”

“Sounds like a fine woman,” Grissom says musingly, and Thomas nods.

“I love her,” he says simply. “And Mama loved the sea, and told me every story. She gave me all sorts of songs, too, but the stories is where the sea lived, and she wanted… she wanted me to love the sea, and I did, oh, I never seen it yet, you know, but I loved it very dear.” He can feel the grin form on his face, and lets it come. “And when I was very small, just a small Tommy after my Mama left, I met Jamie, and in him it was the sea, all the waters and the tides and every finger-stream and creek and river, all flowing together. I met him and I met the seaside.”

He sighs a little. “He’s not much taller than you, I’d say, his face of a brown like the smooth lake-bottom stones under the flat waters of Lake Soroni, his hair just exactly like a gold-red cloud covering up a setting sun low on the stormfronted horizon, perfect lovely hands and mouth and eyes, one hand red, this one-” He opens his right hand and waggles his fingers to demonstrate. “-very, very red, not quite of berries red, more like, mmm, older blood blooming into new flowers, I’d say.”

Thomas puts his hand on his face. “My Jamie is good and clever, too, and patient with his daft old Tommy, and loves me, and I love him. He’s my best and closest friend, heart of my heart, who I love very, very-”

“Already said y’love him,” Grissom interrupts. She turns to a broad wooden trunk, sturdy blocks of timber bound together by some battered metal and thick leather straps hammered into place. It doesn’t have the look of true ironwood, but it’s been sanded well and polished smooth and dyed an almost reddish color. It doesn’t have a lock; he supposes that being the General, she simply doesn’t worry about anyone breaking into it. She must, he reckons, feel safe inside her tent, secure, unreachable. That’s good, that’s _better_. He feels the smile linger on his face, faint but enough to be seen, as she turns to him with a sheet of parchment. The trunk is still open, showing some bundled bits of cloth and leather, and another, smaller box, the glossy black ironwood lid polished to a high shine.

“Was told of two targets my sniper’s eye had better take out of the battle, come morning,” she says flatly, handing him the parchment. “One the last leader of the twenty-two we’ve come to kill, and one… that they’ve said is your healer, the one who’d patch up the lot of yeh so for to fight again.”

Thomas looks at the page, and… well, he _supposes_ he can see how one _might_ be able to tell the one on the left to be Roland, and the one on the right to be Jamie.

“It’s not a very good likeness,” he says, frowning. “You didn’t draw this yourself, did you? Only- well, it’s alright for someone who is a beginner, perhaps, but- oh, if you had a pencil perhaps I could fix it, see, there-” He runs his fingers over the sort-of-Roland’s face. “Roland’s brow and cheekbones are both much higher, you know, and there is a sad, hard loveliness in his eyes- say, General-sai, you don’t-”

She snatches the page from him with a slight hiss of exasperation. “Isn’t some sort of sketching lesson, cully. Tis the death-sentence of the boy you came here to save.”

“Oh, but I-” Thomas puts his hand to his mouth. “But- but he’s not-” He can’t lie and say Jamie’s not dangerous, nor can he say that Jamie wouldn’t fight tooth and nail to stop them from taking him alive, and he certainly can’t say that Roland or Bert would just stand back and let Jamie be captured alive, either. He realizes with a crushing and sudden sadness that this, like so many other things, is something that he _couldn’t_ have changed- if Grissom’d been meant to help them, even a little bit, he would have had to find some way to do it long before the final night before the final battle.

Ah, well. Back to the first plan, then.

“Surely there’s… there must be something, General-sai, something I could give or do, to convince you,” he says desperately, watching her face. “Isn’t there any-”

“No, there isn’t,” she cuts in. “Nothin’ that’d be worth even one of the lives as what follows me, boy. Those two are slated t’die, simple as anything. Could be I’d make an arrangement for one of them big fair-haired beauties you travel with, but-”

Thomas almost lets himself consider it, but- well, he can’t think of anyone but Alain and Claire who’d fit that description, and Alain’s dead or dying, and Claire would never forgive him, and would probably take a bite or two out of anyone who tried to take her, and quite possibly end up as dead as Grissom says. And, of course, there’s always the very real possibility that Grissom is lying about letting him save any of his friends, and the equally real possibility that she might give Claire- like a doll, like chattel- to the Man, and the thought of what he’d do to her makes Thomas feel faint.

No. This is almost certainly the last chance he’ll have in this When, and he thinks he has a fairly solid- well, not plan, really, more of a blind hope, a faith- that this will turn out at least a little differently, that perhaps enough can change here, tonight, that it will affect what happens tomorrow. He can only hope; his mother had a very lovely saying about hope.

“If ye’d surrender, ye’d live,” Grissom says to him now. “You alone. That’s all I can offer.”

“No good thing ever dies,” Thomas mumbles, scrubbing at his face again.

“What?”

“You won’t let that Man have me, though, right?” he asks softly, glancing up at her. “I already know him too well, General-sai, you won’t let him have me again, will you?”

There is just the smallest crack in the granite of her face. “Ye know that I cannae refuse.”

Thomas smiles painfully, his hands rubbing absently at his knees through the old denim of his jeans. “Do you know, General-sai, I think… I think in another lifetime we might have been friends. I think we could have been very good friends, aye. It makes me… feel very sorry, for what’s been done, for what’s going to happen.”

“Get up,” she says flatly, and he struggles a little- ah, it’s his knees, he’s spent too much time on them and now they ache like anything, and his ankle doesn’t seem capable of supporting his weight. He tries, anyway, and in exasperation- and maybe, he hopes for her sake just a little pity or compassion- she reaches down to give him a hand up. Her right hand, naturally, the one she surely uses for most things, and the hand most non-gunslingers shoot with.

He wishes briefly for his knife, discarded forever-now on the forest floor. Ah well- he knows how hard it was to bite his hand through, and in the end he still has the silver moon of tooth-scar on it. He even thinks Grissom glances at the ten year old scar on his hand when he reaches up for hers, grasping weakly at her wrist.

“Thankee-sai,” he says, and perhaps she would normally treat him with just a little more suspicion, but the part of her that can feel compassion for her enemy- the hidden part, the Rose part, the part of her that has always been in there- is open, just a little bit, just enough, perhaps. He grabs onto her hand with his other one, and she tries harder to help him to his feet, leaning into it, the tips of her fingers pressing into his tattooed skin. It puts her balance off; with her concentration on helping him to his feet, even for a moment, she doesn’t recognize right away that he’s got her hand and wrist in his grip, that he’s not pulling himself up but pulling her toward and down. Her hand loosens around his to try to let go, and her finger raises slightly, and it _must_ seem too strange when he slips his mouth over it, he can’t imagine what she must think he’s doing.

Her fingers are short. Her trigger-finger fits in its entirety across his flat tongue, and he feels only a small and controllable urge to gag, and his lips close over her knuckle, and possibly she understands, for she tries to pull away and is unable to do so before his jaw snaps shut. He doesn’t have to bite hard enough to break the bone, no! Of course not!

His teeth sink into the softness of her joint, the place where his hands always hurt and loosen, and he can hear her blood-curdling scream before the bite is done and his teeth meet each other. It doesn’t feel quick at all- he has to give his head a shake, to tear at a stubborn line of flesh until it separates, pulled apart by the force of his bite and the sheer weight of his skull. Blood is hot in and on his mouth, and her finger is a separate thing now, lying hot and still on his tongue. He gives her a solid yank towards him as he gets up, and in her shock and pain and fury she stumbles and falls.

It’s not a guarantee of Jamie’s survival, no, but it’s always a sniper, always Grissom pulling a trigger, and now, well, there might still be a battle, but that, at least, will be different-

-he pulls himself to his feet. It hurts and hurts, so it does, and her screaming will surely attract a guard within seconds, and if ka is willing he won’t need more than that. He can only do what he can, and let ka decide if it’s enough.

He staggers to the open chest and grabs hold of the ironwood box. The tent flap is thrown open. The box is not locked- doesn’t seem to have a lock- and it opens easily, and the glass ball is very lovely indeed, very like the Pink, only a brilliant deep blue color, deeper than a dusky sky. There is a furious shouting behind him. He spits the finger of General Grissom into his palm, aye, and more than a mouthful of blood with it, and he hopes against all hope that all the scrolls and books and Roland’s own testimony are correct in this. The General is shrieking something, barking out an order as her finger tumbles to the floor of the tent.

“Show me, I beg of you, show me the way,” he pleads simply, pressing his bloodied hand against the warm surface of the glass, and for a moment everything

is gloriously

_blue-_

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There is a ringing, as of bells but better and worse, every note clear and beautiful and terrible. Thomas is walking, and almost doesn’t recognize that he is. It comes to him in bits and pieces- this bit hurts, this piece aches- but it’s delightfully foreign, all the same. He is in an open place, very unlike where he just came from, the clean sky overhead, clean ( _?blue?_ ) grass underfoot, tall stone-and-glass buildings all around. The ringing sound fades to nothing; there are some quiet noises all around, and an almost melodic thumping over the sound of footfalls nearby.

He wipes his blood-tacky hand on the side of his leg. There is a man- maybe his age, maybe a little younger- and a boy- _much_ younger, for certain- and they are on a flatly paved patch of ground, bouncing a large ball to one another, tossing it into curious hoops suspended against small boards and standing high on metal poles.

It looks like a _game_. They look like brothers. He walks closer, curious- they’re wearing interestingly-colored shirts without sleeves, and the man is wearing jeans, like Thomas, and the boy is wearing brightly-colored shorts- too bright and long to be underpants, but too short to be actual pants.

Both of their shirts have writing on them, but Thomas doesn’t have a head for languages at all, no, and he can’t muddle them out. The boy glances over at him first, bouncing the ball in place a couple of times. The man looks at him too; both are smiling, despite his ragged and bloody clothing, despite the messy tangle of his hair. He rakes his clean hand through it at least- nowhere near as neat as Jamie can make it, but at least it’s not a witchy mane.

The two of them look familiar, too, don’t they? Like people he’s met before but only a few times, or maybe even the sons of someone he knows. He couldn’t say.

“Hile,” Thomas says shyly, approaching the flat surface of their game-square. “Do- do you live here?” He means inside the ball, inside the Sapphire Bend, but the boy brightens up, exactly like any boy would.

“Oh, nah, we live in that building over there,” the boy points, and his older brother reaches over, tousles his hair with a warm expression of impossible fondness.

“You’re not supposed to just go around telling strangers where we live, squirt, just because it turned out okay with Suzie-”

“He’s not a stranger,” the little brother says, shooting a loving grin at his brother before turning to Thomas again. “You’re not a stranger at all, you’re- you’re Tommy.”

“Aye, that’s me,” Thomas says, smiling tentatively when the boy beams at him. Was Thomas ever that young? He thinks he must have been. For a moment, though, it looked and sounded like the boy meant to call him by some other name, somehow. Thomas clears his throat. “I don’t wish to be rude at all, but-”

“You came from that other place, that other world,” the boy says eagerly, and the man, Thomas sees, watches- with the eye of a family guardian, yes, but does he spy the gaze of a gunslinger there? Do those hands linger in easy dropping distance to guns that do not hang at his hips?

“I do?” Thomas asks, tilting his head at them. “Is that what this is, another world, another time?”

“Time is a face on the water,” the man says softly. Thomas startles slightly, and he realizes at once who these must be, to be so familiar-seeming and to quote his own dinh back at him.

“Why, does this mean Roland has- has sons, has a family?” Thomas crows delightedly, but the two of them wince at each other. Disappointment flares in Thomas’s chest. “Is- is that _not_ the case...?”

“It might be and it might not be,” the boy says carefully. “We will still be here, even if he doesn’t learn, even if he never figures it out, because we’re _from_ here. Him- the Gunslinger- he’s from… from wherever you’re from, I guess, from where Suzie dreamed of us. He can’t get here yet.”

“Why is that?” Thomas asks, but he already knows the answer, sighing. “I shan’t ask again, for I know ‘tis the workings of ka, aye, and of Roland’s own stubborn pride.”

“Ka,” the boy echoes.

“Kaka,” the man says solemnly, and the two of them giggle nervously at one another. Thomas loves them; he could stay here and watch them play around and be close all day, all his life, for here, it feels like everything is going well, that everything is alright and safe.

There hasn’t been much safety for him, not for a long time.

“I’d like very much to help him come home to you,” Thomas says earnestly, and they look at him, and he realizes with a happy jolt that they love him- have loved him- will one day love him again.

“We barely remember how, even when we’re dreaming like this,” the man says apologetically. “I know it starts with Jake- with letting him die in search of the Tower-”

The man’s hand hovers protectively over the boy’s shoulder.

“Are you the boy under the mountain?” Thomas asks slowly, and the boy- Jake- gives him a sweet, sad smile.

“In another world, maybe,” he says. “In another When. But that’s not it either, Eddie- there’s the lady in Tull, and there’s the Horn, and there’s all of his friends- all of you-” The boy waves a hand at Thomas, who nods. “And Stanley Ruiz, and his mom, and the girl at the window, and David-”

“Oh, poor David,” Thomas murmurs, frowning. The girl at the window- mightn’t that be Susan? And yes, before her David- didn’t Tommy himself say so, when he was young? Didn’t he say all of this, too, in another When, buried deep in his mind, aye? Hasn’t the answer always been this, and this maddeningly simple?

“It’s not… it’s not enough for us to know it,” Thomas realizes slowly, and the man and the boy- Eddie and Jake- look sad, so deeply sad. “Roland himself knows it, and… and perhaps he _can_ save it all, can’t he? He never killed his lady mother here, he never did, and I know that ate at him terrible-”

“I don’t know if that’s going to be enough,” Eddie says simply, looking worried. “He’s always able to save the Tower, though, I know that. He always manages it in the end. It’s just…”

He trails off, looking at his little brother.

“He just doesn’t know when to let go of the Quest for anything else,” Jake says softly. “Even if that not-knowing means he’s not… worthy, I guess, in the end.” Thomas drags his hands down his face at that, forgetting until it’s too late the blood still drying on his hand, and the boy- Jake- gives him a faint smile. “Is he really as hard to love as he is in my dreams, Tommy?”

“Oh, aye, _significantly_ so,” Thomas sighs. “But love him I do, for all that he is difficult.” He pauses, hopeful. “Are you two what await at the end of all this? Are you two in the Clearing, then?”

“I mean, we ain’t dead _yet_ , pardner,” Eddie drawls at him, and he’s struck with the sudden resemblance between this man and Cuthbert- they look nothing like, no, but gods if that didn’t sound, just for a _moment-_

“So- so Roland _does_ see the Tower, then, and save it from… from whatever it is out there that sickens and ails it,” Thomas asks, and the boy nods, then frowns, pulling a face he’s seen thousands of times, aye, on the face of his dear Alain. Such a curiosity, these sons of Roland are.

“There’s… it’s complicated,” the boy says, and his brother puts a hand on his head. “There’s only one, I think, and it’s infinite- do you know what infinity means?”

Thomas thinks unbidden of Jamie, every time he’s seen Jamie smile, and nods, grinning. Infinity is the number of times he’s seen it and will see it and will want even more to see it again.

“There’s infinity Rolands and there’s infinity yous and there’s infinity times that Roland goes to the Tower,” the boy says slowly, “and there’s infinity of us, and of Suzie, and of our dog and our friends. And even if every single Roland went to the Tower at the same time, none of him would know it, because of how incomprehensibly big it is.”

“ _Size_ ,” Thomas mutters, frowning. “Size and _ka_. Aye, makes sense, I suppose.”

“Not to me it doesn’t,” Eddie says cheerfully. “To me it sounds like a load of kaka.” He then mugs furiously at them, though the boy Jake seems more to be smiling at his ridiculous face than at the words themselves.

“Cry your pardon, Sai Eddie, but if there is a joke there, I am ignorant of its meaning,” Thomas says politely, and Eddie gives a good-natured groan.

“Nah, it’s fine, Tommy, it’s alright-” he sighs, his hands up in surrender.

“You’re _real_ , aren’t you?” Thomas asks, his smile slipping. “You’re both real and waiting, aye?”

“We’re both real,” the boy confirms seriously.

“We’re both waiting,” his brother adds.

Thomas smiles again. “That’s good, then. That’s lovely. I only… I only wish I could meet you, one day, but-”

“Who knows?” the boy says, deceptively casual. “Maybe we really _will_ meet one day, Uncle Tommy.”

“Aye, one day,” Thomas agrees. He watches with no small degree of fascination as Eddie gently cuffs Jake’s shoulder, and as the two of them tussle playfully for a second. How young they are, and good, and how wonderful that they are safe here! How right, how just- like wiping away the blood and excess ink to show a beauty etched in skin, like opening a dark box to find a lovely and helpful glass, like darting into a room and discovering that Jamie is still safe and comfortable where he’d last left him, like resting his head on a friend’s shoulder! Thomas lays a hand over the radiant rose on his chest, happy and full-hearted and grateful to have seen it, and finally the brothers part, bright-eyed and smiling.

“You got a real smartass mouth, kiddo,” Eddie says, grinning.

“Yeah, who’d I learn it from?” Jake challenges. He looks at Thomas again, his smile fading a little. “I _know_ you can do it. I know this is going to work. Not just for everything that happened before he let me fall, but everything after- all those miles and miles, the man with the van, the baby, the artist- it’s going to fix everything, I know it and I _promise_. You can’t give up, and you can’t do it alone. You’re stronger than the shadows and the blood.”

“Yeah, listen to the kid,” Eddie says seriously, still smiling. “What he lacks in height he makes up for in cosmic wisdom.”

“Aw, come on,” the boy says, and Thomas would love to stay, would love to stay with them, he really would, only he knows that he mustn’t, that he can’t, that he’d never succeed if he gave up to give himself a bit of comfort. And how could he help himself to the peace of Roland’s sons, when Roland himself never gets that peace, that comfort? And he really doesn’t, Thomas realizes, he never does.

“Roland is the _only_ one who reaches it, isn’t he?” Thomas asks softly, tears threatening to fall. “Even when we live past today, none of us ever lives to the end of his quest. None of us- he’s always alone, isn’t he? He’s always the last, he never- he must be _so_ alone at the end-”

The boy throws himself against Thomas, wrapping his arms around his waist.

“It’s not the end until it’s over,” he whispers into Thomas’s shirt, and Thomas gives the boy a loose-limbed hug in return. “It’s going to work, Uncle Tommy, and it’s gonna be okay. You just can’t give up.”

“Aye, if you say so then I surely believe it,” Thomas smiles down at him, for how could he not believe in the conviction of such a lovely child? “And never’d I give up.”

Thomas wonders briefly if _uncle_ means the same thing here as it does in All-World- certainly he’s met people who called any older fellow dad or granddad, so it makes sense- but before he can ask, Eddie claps a hand on his shoulder.

“Seriously,” he says, smiling beautifully. “It’s worth it. It’s all worth it, and your faith will be rewarded.”

“Knowing that you two fellows are here is reward enough,” Thomas says honestly, and at that the man blushes scarlet. “Thank you. Thank you both, aye, and-”

He knows there is more that he meant to say, only those ungentle and silver-sharp bells begin their ringing once more, and the brothers draw back, hands over their ears, the orange ball rolling away on the smooth ground.

“Ooh, again that sound,” Thomas hisses, his mouth watering with a sudden nausea, his eyes reduced to glassy slivers. “I don’t-”

“What is _that_?!” the boy yelps fearfully, pointing over Thomas’s shoulder, and his eyes widen. “It’s him, it’s _Him_ , it’s the Priest, it’s the Man in Bla-”

Thomas doesn’t have time to look before a rough, icy hand fastens around the scruff of his neck and yanks, and for a moment it’s all darkness, all over, all around, and there are lights that he knows immediately to be eyes, and there are teeth and drooling, dripping mouths, and there is a sudden hush as many, many things turn in the darkness and see _him-_

-and the bells, maddeningly loud, maddeningly beautiful, every bone in Thomas’s skull a screaming agony at their chiming tones-

-and still that icy hand round his neck, now two, dragging him backwards, choking the breath out of him-

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

-and he is on the floor of General Grissom’s tent again, the Man sitting astraddle of his chest, and his hand is still sticky with her blood, and his face is wet with it where he’d rubbed his face earlier. Icy hands are wrapped around his throat, the thumbs pressing against the soft flesh under his jaw in a deadly promise.

“ _Someone_ taught an old dog a new trick,” the Man says, and he’s smiling but he looks furious, his pale face livid with high spots of blood-purple on his cheeks. “Hiding your intention and using the Bend to go todash? Not what I expected from the village idiot.”

“Oh, aye, because you know me so well, don’t you,” Thomas spits out, and he rarely has the chance to employ such a pert tone, and deeply enjoys it. The Man’s eyes flash with terrible violence and anger, and it’s still worth it, even when the Man’s hands tighten and he raises Thomas’s head and slams it back against the ground, even as Thomas chokes and scrabbles to pull his hands free to try to take a breath.

“What were you doing in there?” he snaps. “What did you see?”

He finally releases Thomas’s throat- just a little, and Thomas gags and coughs on the first thin breath he takes, and the second. The Man grasps his throat and gives his head a little shake, and Thomas lets out a pained, fearful whimper despite himself.

“Tell me!” he roars, and Thomas huffs, and realizes that he wants nothing more than to laugh in this Man’s face.

“Why, can’t you see yourself, can’t you _hear_ my thoughts?” he asks, and his mind is open, aye, his mind is an open lagoon, isn’t it, full of water and sky, full of islands of thought, and how many islands are there, fifty? A hundred? Thousands, a hundred thousand, a thousand thousand? Thomas grins up at the Man.

“You think you’re so fucking cute,” the Man hisses. “You think I’m just going to kill you this time and let you go off to the next time with whatever you saw? You think I haven’t had you like this before, you little fuck? You’re not going to go anywhere, buckaroo, I’m going to kill you and I’m going to make it _slow_ and I’m going to bring you back, like I’ve done before, and you’re gonna be mine, you understand? You’re gonna be mine until I _say_ you can die, you little prick!”

“Aye, and then what?” Thomas says, and bares his teeth up at the Man. “Might be I _could_ tell you what I’ve seen, aye, for there’s been a blood sacrifice after all, and I’ve got questions of my own, and the number, I believe, is three-”

He latches his bloody hands around the Man’s wrists, and the Man lets out an apoplectic shriek of rage at him, spitting curses and who knows what else.

“Could kill you right now, you little _fuck_!” the Man howls, and Thomas coughs out another near-laugh.

“Oh, aye, that you could, that you could, what a terrible and unforeseen circumstance I in no way _planned_ for,” he sneers. _My word_ , he thinks, but using such a pert and sarcastic tone is ever so fun, he realizes now why other people do it, he simply _must_ work himself up to being so sharpish and- and Bert-ish, again. He feels _amazing_ , as though he’s come back a whole person instead of the injured half who went into the Bend. He feels clever, he feels _brave_ , and he thinks mostly it is because he knows the faces of Roland’s sons, knows that they’re waiting there for their father, and for him, aye, and for all of them.

“You’re going to pay for this,” the Man growls, soft and low, and Thomas really does laugh.

“Already have, and that’s why you’re _stuck_ , you sad and loveless creature that you are,” he coughs out, and the Man’s mouth is full of wolf’s teeth, for all that they look as straight and fine as Roland’s own. “My questions three, sai, for neither of us has forever!”

“Ask, damn you,” the Man hisses.

“Am not damned, and you well know it,” Thomas says primly, coughing. “My first so very simple, sai, but _was_ there ever a real John Farson?”

“Once,” the Man spits out. “Once there was a man by that name, a man who wanted many things I could promise him, and when he became inconvenient I put him away, and who’d be able to tell the difference between us? Even his own nephew knew not his own true face, and if I stepped into that role here and there and here again, well-”

“Alas that you’d no family to miss _you_ , then,” Thomas says up at him. “Enough o’that, sai, enough and plenty. My next, sai, my next- _what_ could you possibly hope to gain from all these plans and machinations, all the weirdness and the blood you’ve made?”

“I will reach the Tower myself,” he says, eyes flashing, the hard and icy weight of his member growing against Thomas’s chest, making him whine with uncontrolled horror. “I will aid the King in his goal to weaken and destroy its protectors, I will let that mad fool think me a servant while I let him do the work of killing the last of the line of Eld. No fucking around with the mutie spider, no, just me, just this.” His voice lowers to a harsh purr, as his hips jerk forward slightly, as he ruts against Thomas’s aching chest.

“I _will_ take the corpse of your dear beloved dinh and use its rotting flesh to open the doors, I _will_ climb to its summit. I _will_ gaze out into the entirety of the multiverse, and there, at the top of eternity, I _will_ become eternal, _I will remake the multiverse in my image_ -”

His hands tighten reflexively around Thomas’s throat; he squirms but there’s no budging the Man, not now, and maybe not ever- but, ah, that’s really only what the Man wants him to think, isn’t it? Thomas bucks painfully under him, trying to shake him loose, just for a moment, just for a scrap of air, but it’s only when the Man is finished and Thomas’s body growing limp under him, only once Thomas’s vision goes gray and tunneled, that he lets go and allows Thomas to suck in a great gasping breath.

“Your third,” the Man pants, as Thomas’s legs kick weakly against the ground. “Your third question, you worst and weakest of gunslingers.”

“Never going to step inside,” Thomas croaks, and lets go of one of the Man’s wrists to clap his hand gently against the radiant rose over his heart. “Not until you return to the Rose, not until you enter as a worthy pilgrim, aye, not until you reach it hand in hand with Roland Deschain, last son of Eld, as a friend, aye. You’ll never get in that door otherwise, not once, not ever, not in all the long and running lifetimes-”

“Shut up!” the Man shrieks, and pounds Thomas’s head back against the ground, hard enough that he feels something in his throat crack and a blinding pain shoots from the back of his skull through his eyes. He moans softly, the Man’s face swimming out of focus before him. “Your third question, you-”

“D’you-” Thomas tries to ask, his eyes rolling drunkenly in his sockets for a moment. His mind wanders back home- what is Gilead now?- and back to his friends, back to the camp where Alain is dead or dying, to where Alain’s sister and Cuthbert’s mother are waiting, to where all the loves of this life- though not all the lives, he knows that now- are waiting for tomorrow. He loves them so, he loves them all so very much, and Jamie, ah- loveliest Jamie, best and cleverest and sweetest and kindest Jamie- Jamie he loves the most, and always has. It is gray again, ah, it is darker now, it will be time to rest soon-

The Man slaps him, sending some painful, burning power into him, like the flickering lights that housed electricity in their bulbs in long-ago and long-dead Gilead, and Thomas screams, it _hurts_ , so it does, scooping all of him out and putting it back in all wrong, all wrong-feeling.

“Ask it!” the Man snaps, and Thomas tries a smile, blood bubbling through his teeth.

“D’you _know_ how fucked you are?” he gurgles, and helpless anger would have been a very fine thing to see, but what he sees in that last moment is not anger at all, but a deep cowardice, aye. It’s _fear_. It’s even finer than anger, he thinks, it’s very fine indeed.

“I know,” the Man breathes out. “I know. Now answer, as you said you would, what did you see in the Bend, what did it show you, where did you go?”

“Oh, _dear_ ,” Thomas rasps wetly, still grinning horribly. “Did I say I would or did I say I _could_ , my friend? Aye, probably still could, for I’ve got breath in me, but _will_ I? You reckon you can _make_ me?”

The Man utters a terrible, inhuman howl of frustrated rage, and Thomas finds it in himself to laugh, finally.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

No guarantees, none whatsoever. The wounds are terrible, and Jamie’s done what he can, and if Alain lives through the next twelve hours he thinks there’s still a heavy chance that Alain will fall to an infection in the bones or in his blood-

-but for now, at least, he lives, sleeping painfully with his head in his sister’s lap. Roland and Cuthbert are bleeding misery, holding a grim vigil over him, and Tommy is- is-

Jame comes slowly to himself, taking in the surroundings of the camp. It’s not unlike Thomas to be moved to unhelpful tears at the sight of his friends in pain, and perhaps Thomas is off somewhere having a cry and trying to stay out of the way, but-

-but it doesn’t feel that way.

Thomas had been so sure that Alain would die, choking on his own blood in some midnight field tonight, but Alain _is_ still alive, for all that he might _not_ be in the next day or so, and Tommy should know that. Tommy will be so happy and gently, tentatively hopeful to hear it, to hear that it’s different from the last time- and then they’ll go and check on Alain’s fire for the smokescreen together, won’t they? Just to see, just to know, that Alain’s work was completed before he came back. Yes. And then they can take out a handy number of the Troitan scum, sure, and then their ka-tet will move on, find somewhere safe to land their feet and live, find that place with the cottages by the water where a past Jamie and a past Tommy had been so happy and at peace together.

Jamie resolves to tell him all about it, resolves to tell Thomas that Alain’s recovery is a surer thing than it is. He is _very_ sure that Tommy is going to be very, very glad of it, and that he’ll smile and have a hopeful spring in his step, and shoot all the better tomorrow for it, and-

-Jamie stops, a few yards from his bedroll. The guns on his bedroll are not his, no, but he knows them, knows them better than he knows Bert’s or Al’s or even his own dinh’s. He knows them as well as he knows his own, for he rarely looks down toward the guns he wears, and he looks at the owner of these all the time, every day.

They’d belonged once to a knight of Eld- to Parsifal, who was called the Pure Fool and the Poor Fool, who had been a lovely and sweet-natured boy until Arthur Eld had ridden through his sleepy pastoral hamlet and asked who among them was brave and suresighted and hallowed enough to die in the service of ungrateful strangers, and only one, only the Knight of the White Rose, had stepped forward, not out of hunter-lust but because his vast and lovely heart had been moved to help those strangers. The guns themselves are lovely machines, in their own way, but mostly because they’d been held by Tommy, and by this long-ago gunslinger for whom Tommy represented the very last link in a thousand-year chain. Thomas had been mildly proud to tell Jamie and mildly ashamed to be proud, unable to divorce the face of Parsifal the Rose-Hearted from the face of Colton Whitman, monstrous bastard.

And now they are on Jamie’s bedroll, no note- not that he _can_ think of anything Tommy would have been able to say- and no drawing, which hurts more than Jamie realizes. Perhaps it is part of their shared _khef_ , that Jamie can imagine it- other Tommys who gave in to some sudden suicidal urge and left one last piece of art for their Jamies to treasure. Perhaps it is only wishful thinking, that Tommy must have had some reason to leave his guns but would _never_ have left him without saying goodbye, and that therefore Tommy expects to be back.

Jamie looks at them carefully, but he knows Thomas doesn’t feel about his guns the way the other three of their ka-tet do, and eventually he decides he must handle them himself. He picks them up, cradling their weight in his hands- lovely machines, as Tommy would undoubtedly say, but only machines, at that. Not worth the sudden gaping absence of his best and closest friend, of the one person he loves most.

Jamie gently tucks them away, into a drawstring leather bag, and looks around the camp. How can he _think_ Tommy’s not coming back? All of his things are there, all of his sketches and the cunning hand-made and hand-bottled inks and the drawing sticks and tattooist needles Thomas has worked so, so hard to make for himself over the last few years. Every material thing in this world that shows that Thomas ever lived is here- everything, that is, but Thomas himself- and shouldn’t this all be proof enough that Thomas is not _gone_ , just- just stepped away, or stepped aside, to do something?

Without the guns, which he has worn every day since earning them, even though he has no real love for them? Without telling anyone, though they all know and worry for the way Tommy’s mind wanders, and worry that one day his feet will follow? Without telling Jamie, who he tells everything to?

Jamie licks his lips. He knows he cannot risk the rest of them by calling up a search for his Tommy, cannot even risk himself, for all that they need him for a doctor and for a pair of guns.

The image of Tommy, wandering lost and alone and gunless, comes unbidden to his mind, and he realizes that it is no simple fear or anxiety. He goes and finds Lavinia Allgood, who he has loved like his own mother for a very, very long time now.

He’s not sure what he hopes, but when he gives her the briefest explanation- who he can’t find, and what he found instead- Cuthbert’s mother closes her eyes, visibly pained.

“Poor boy,” she murmurs quietly, “just like his mother before him. Ah, my dearling, you’d better go and speak to your dinh, for the loss of not one but two- well, it must affect his plans for tomorrow, surely.”

“Surely,” Jamie echoes blankly, and he goes over to Roland, who still sits at Alain’s side, with Cuthbert and Claire. Alain’s sister looks up at him, eyes round with sudden horror, and he remembers that she shares Alain’s Touch, though not his training in it. He imagines the hot curdling seed of what he knows and suspects happened, taken in Claire’s hand, spreading branches and leaves out to the rest of their party.

“No,” she whispers.

“What happened?” Roland asks wearily, and Jamie tells him, using up all the words left in his throat, his mouth going dry and still at long last.

In the end, though, it changes very little. They can smell the smoke- though faintly- from Alain’s fires now. Lavinia Allgood is tasked to stay with Alain, and after much deliberation- from Roland and Cuthbert and Claire and Lavinia herself- Jamie gently presses one of Thomas’s guns into her hands, to use to protect herself and Alain if their line should fall. The other he presses insistently into Claire’s, for he knows Thomas very well- not well enough to predict this, maybe, but well enough to know what he’d want, and he’d want these old machines to protect the mother and sister of his heart.

They will still wait for their dawn engagement.

Jamie lays himself down to sleep, and allows himself just a small dream: not death, but simple confused wandering for his Tommy. Tommy barehanded and distracted, perhaps smiling the sweet smile that wanders onto his face whenever he starts to think of something he loves, just one quiet soul walking aimlessly away from death. Is that not better? Is it not cleaner, than this?

And perhaps, he allows, his eyes drifting shut, Tommy safe enough that no one goes looking for him in the aftermath. Tommy coming back to himself at the edge of a great and lovely lagoon, perhaps, or the wind-tossed and wine-dark sea he’s always dreamt of seeing one day. Tommy building a little cottage for himself- big enough for two, of course- and he allows himself to imagine that Tommy will wait, sweetly anticipating Jamie’s step outside his window and Jamie’s shadow at his door. Tommy planting squash and beans and potatoes, Tommy fishing in the gentle golden light, Tommy an old man covered in an ever-growing collection of tattoos, Tommy never hearing another gunshot’s report in the rest of his long and peaceful li-

-Tommy grinning bloodily at him, the whites of his eyes gone crimson from a popped vein or two, his throat a purple horror, his hair a tangled witch’s-nest, and in Tommy’s hands a big orange ball, curiously nubbed and with gentle black lines upon it. Tommy bounces the ball on the ground, delighted by the hollow noise of it.

“It’s a game I saw Roland’s sons playing,” he explains in earnest. “There are to be hoops as well, only-” He trails off, looking around the forest. “None here, are there, lovey?”

“Tommy,” Jamie says reproachfully, and Thomas holds the ball to his chest, those awful red eyes blinking back tears of blood. “Come _back_ here. Come back, Tommy.”

“Oh, I can’t, for I’m dead, Jay, or right near it,” Tommy says cheerfully, looking around again. “Didn’t do so bad at the end there, did I? Laughed right in his face and stopped her from shootin’ you and met those fine young fellows. Not too bad for the village idiot, eh?”

“No,” Jamie says firmly- who’d call his Tommy such? Who’d _dare_? The shyly proud smile on Tommy’s face slips, though, and Jamie realizes that his face moves left and right, never stopping or lighting up in the direction where Jamie stands. “To me, Tommy. Come _back_.”

“Jay?” Thomas asks softly, the ball slipping from his hands. “Jay, you’re still here, aren’t you, Jamie? You’re still with me, aye?”

“ _Yes_!” Jamie surges forward, his hands grasping desperately- his small brown left, his small red right- but no matter how he reaches, he never seems to touch Thomas at all. “Yes! Tommy, yes, Tommy, _here_!”

“Don’t leave old Tommy alone now,” Thomas pleads, his voice breaking. “Ah, no, I’m _afraid_ , Jamie, don’t leave me, I beg, don’t go now at the very end, _please_ , Jamie-”

And then, inexplicably, his voice suddenly rusty and mushy, as though the wounds on his throat and face are caught up to him at last: “-oh, aye, know ya must, it’s her honor and yours, aye? Please tell her I didn’t lie about what I said, I _do_ think we could’ve been friends in another life-”

-Jamie opens his eyes, fully awake, the cold gray-blue light of almost-dawn upon him.

He thinks, one last time: a sweet old man, a cottage by the sea, the sun painting the waters gold, a peaceful life, a reprieve from all this. Then he gets up, and prepares for gunfire.

There are fewer than the rumored two thousand on the field- far fewer, though probably still over a thousand all told- and the smoke from Alain’s fires is sweeping across the field, distorting what the enemy can see and breathe and think. Jamie wonders where the rest of Farson’s army has gone.

Tommy had been worried about a sniper- had all but confirmed that he expected the fearsome General Grissom to send a bullet through Jamie’s skull, and possibly even Roland’s- but as much as Jamie watches the other encampment, he sees no glint of sun against a sniper’s lens-

-but he can see the pennants and flags the remaining troops carry. Some long and patterned, some short and simple, most of them blue or blue with a single other color-

-and one, long and brown and oddly-shaped, and then he realizes that it is no pole this flag is tied to, but a pike. He hadn’t recognized the shape of it, no, for there is a white-and-red round thing on the end of the pike, and the long brown flag flies from that.

And Jamie knows what it is. His eyes see, even as his heart screams against it. On Roland’s other side, Cuthbert draws in a sharp, horrified breath, and releases it in a pained moan, and Jamie has time to know and understand that Bert, too, had hoped and dreamed that Tommy had made it to some peaceful other life away from this.

It is not a flag at all on that pike, but a battered and bloody human head, with a lovely toasted-chestnut mane flying behind it.

“What is it?” Claire asks sharply. “What do you see? What do-”

“Claire Johns, now is not the time for talk,” Roland says flatly, and for a moment Jamie hates him, for how calm and even his voice is, at this time, at this place. “Now is the time for gunfire.”

“It’s _always_ the time for talk,” Bert jokes, but it rings false to their ears, and his attempt at a chuckle dies as a pained rattle in his throat as he rubs anxiously at his front, low against his belly where his belts meet. “Why don’t you set us on with a song, Ro?”

“And deprive _you_ of the attention?” Roland asks dryly, tossing his horn to Cuthbert- and then Jamie sees it, the tremble in his hand that almost pitches the historic and noble Horn of Eld wide. Roland turns back to face the field, and Jamie can see twin tracks of sunlit gold running down Roland’s face.

“He’d want us to live and be happy,” Bert muses, and that is the last sentence Jamie can fully hear or process or agree with for a _very_ long time indeed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 5 warnings/tags: implied/referenced child abuse, implied/referenced incest, child illness/terminal illness, child death, traumatic reincarnation, Almost Everyone Lives AU

The beginnings are always the same.

He’s ever so sweet- the sweetest little baby, in her valid and unbiased opinion, the cutest and chubbiest and triggest little boy. It’s been a difficult and sad and hard gathering of years ever since Verise left behind the name of her father’s house and became Verise Whitman by the law of Gilead’s dinh, but the past two years have been, in this one and very solid way, blessed. He’s a tender little thing, aye, loves to cuddle into her arms, loves to sleep in her lap and with his head on her shoulder, loves to watch her speak and sing. And so what if he does not yet speak? Some babes don’t speak much, and some babes cannot, and she does not need him to be able to use words to know that he is a bright and loving boy. Her own brother is a grown man, aye, and has never uttered a word in his life. 

Colton likes to insist that the Doctor needs to see him and see what’s wrong with their Thomas, but Verise doesn’t know if she trusts that man. Something in her- some unfamiliar aspect of her own mind, born of motherhood at the moment that she bore her Thomas- questions what this man could want with a wee one still young enough to be seen by the midwife when those skilled ladies come ‘round to see to Verise’s health. And a learned surgeon he may be, but what man- doctor or no- could ever understand or comprehend the mind of a baby better than his own mother? 

She takes him to visit her oldest and best friend of a luncheon, for she’d caught pregnant just as soon as Verise’d had Thomas, and her little baby- a lovely little blue-eyed boy- is of an age that the two of them would be in the same classes under dear old Abel Vannay, and be classmates of his sweet son, Wallace. Not that Verise truly wants that for him, though- already, she wonders if it would not be better and safer to steal him away back to her home Barony. There is an ugly conflict festering to the north, thanks to the harrier John Farson, and already Colton is in and out of Gilead to try to rein in the madness with Gabrielle’s husband, and no mother prays for her child to be a soldier in his father’s war.

“We should let them play,” Verise says, after they’d greeted and sipped through their first glasses of stream-cooled tea. “The little dears will be friends all their lives, after all.” 

“Perhaps,” Gabby says distantly, then motions for the cradle-amah fussing nearby to bring little Roland over to them. The amah-nurse sets the boy in the carefully cushioned pen where her wee Tommy-bab is seriously patting his hands all along the soft, quilted surface of one of the pillows, cooing gently to himself. The amah excuses herself- sure to have need of a visit to the privy and a bite to eat, if she’s still acting as Roland’s wet-nurse- and Verise hopes she takes as long as she needs. 

“Your boy is so sweet,” Verise says warmly, glancing over Roland’s round little face as he gazes patiently into the distance, apparently waiting for the amah to return. “Looks like such a little poppet of his father, doesn’t he?”

“He looks very like his father, I think,” Gabby says, and puts her near-empty tea onto the small table between them. They sit in silence- Verise smiling faintly at the pair of toddlers coexisting outside one another’s orbits, Gabrielle in the growing state of visible discomfort that Verise is used to, these past few months. “Is it the Speaking Sickness, then?”

“Beg pardon, love?” Verise asks, and Gabby flushes, glancing away.

“Your Thomas,” she says quietly. “Has- has the Doctor said he’s fallen to it? It’s not an affliction that prevents apprenticeship- Steven says that in some boys it makes them  _ more  _ skilled, as though it leaves nothing of their mind or soul at all after their training, just the gun- but he does… he seems…” 

Verise waits patiently, and no end appears at the end of that sentence, just Gabby’s lovely dark-gold face going scarlet as she averts her eyes. 

“I know not what the Doctor would say, for I haven’t let him to see Tommy,” Verise remarks, once it becomes clear that her friend won’t continue. “He’s not the age for it- three and one half, I believe, is the Gilead way, is it not? But by the ways of Argenbie Hold, well, he’d not leave the midwives’ care til five.” 

“The ways of Arten are the same, five’d be the age,” Gabby muses, before glancing guiltily at Verise. “Wouldn’t have allowed it, but Steven insisted. He believes it’s the Speaking Sickness in Roland, as well. It’s the only reason I asked, Veri.”

“Not quite one and a half, isn’t he?” Verise asks lightly, nodding towards the lovely and solemn toddler. “Too young for your Steven to think so, your Roland is.” 

Gabby doesn’t answer, only clutches impotently at the material of her fine skirts. After several too-quiet moments, she speaks again. 

“How do you bear it, Veri?” she asks softly, unable to meet Verise’s eyes. “No sea-air, here, and no open waters, and I haven’t seen you don a pair of britches  _ once  _ or lay so much as a finger on a rail or length of rigging. How do you bear to live in this castle that is so very far from the homes we knew?”

“Do you ask as my friend or as some sort of queen, Gab?” Verise asks gently, and Gabby gives her a startled look. “For as my friend I’d tell you very different than as my queen.”

“Let’s hear both, I think,” Gabby says, smiling faintly. “I’d hear every word of your advice, my dearheart.”

“You even speak as these highborn Gilead-girls do,” Verise teases gently, leaning back. “Ah, well, I cannot speak to a queen, but you and I, sailor to sailor, Gabby?” She makes the easy back-and-forth gesture they used often when they’d run their river-races as girls,  _ rough waters, keep your deck even _ . 

“Yes, sailor to sailor.” Gabby smiles again. “Aye, Veri. Just so.”

“Then I’d say that but of course, my love of our people sustains me, and my love of justice and the way of Eld keeps my unhappiness at bay,” Verise says, playing idly with the edge of a pan-fried popkin on her plate. 

“And what, then, in truth? What would you say as my friend?”

_ What would you say _ , Verise all but hears,  _ if you weren’t concerned about sinking the boat we’re on? _

“I’d say as a friend and fellow mother that I  _ don’t  _ bear it, love, not at all,” Verise admits. “This place is not my home and these ways are not my ways, and I am only here- in this castle, this city, this barony at all- because this is where my son is.” 

It’s a step too close to treason to add,  _ and your husband has decreed my son a future gunslinger, and bars me from taking him back to my homeland, and I’d not leave this boy for the world itself _ . 

“I feel much the same way,” Gabby says- carefully, her tone neutral. “Steven is not in Gilead many weeks of the year, and barely spends time in our apartments even when he is. I know at least Colton is with Steven when he’s not home, though-”

“I believe them to be together much of the time, then,” Verise says, shrugging. “They are ka-tet, after all, and married us as either an afterthought or an obligation, not because they knew or sought us.”

“Don’t you  _ want  _ to be sought?” Gabby asks desperately, and it’s Verise’s turn to take a neutral tone, for it wasn’t  _ very  _ long ago that she would have wanted to be sought by Gabby herself, and it was only seven years gone that they’d shared their brief and only kiss, away on a rocky riverside, the night before Gabby was taken by wagon-train to Gilead for her wedding. She’s not even sure if Gabby remembers that night.

“I have accepted,” Verise says mildly, “that what I want is not the same thing as what I get. Best not to dwell on’t.”

Gabby shakes her head, not seeming to hear. “I can’t stop thinking of it, Veri. I gave up the idea of- of freedom, yes, but I was only a girl, wasn’t I? I didn’t know what it was I sacrificed on the altar of Gilead’s precious bloodlines, no. And for what? For a man who is never here to see me, and doesn’t look at me when he is?”

“Ah, Gab-” Verise begins, but her friend’s hands clench into fists, wrinkling the soft skirts. 

“Has he  _ ever  _ spoken? Your Thomas,” Gabby says, the course of their conversation shifting so sudden that Verise needs a few blinking moments to understand her. 

“Not yet,” Verise says, and shrugs. “He doesn’t need to, I say.”

“No, of course, he’s not the one who’ll be called upon to speak for his ka-tet one day, or for the barony as a man,” Gabby says, almost bitterly. “Roland spoke- just a little, yes, but true words for a few short weeks. Calling to me, to his dog, to the amah. Never to Steven, of course.”

“Of course,” Verise agrees warily, glancing at the boys again. Tommy seems to have finally noticed his little playmate, and is watching Roland with an expression of babyish interest. 

“Only the words have dried up and left him, and the keenness in his face has melted away, and he knows us not, and calls for us never,” Gabby says, her knuckles very white around her fistfuls of linen. “Steven- there is no sign of the Speaking Sickness in his family line, or in mine, he says. Steven says that  _ I _ must have caused it in Roland, myself.”

“A fool man, dinh or no,” Verise says sternly. “What cause would he have to say so, then?”

“Never mind that,” Gabrielle says, and for the first time Verise is alarmed, for she’d expected her friend to angrily wonder that herself, or point out some deficiency in Steven’s parenting. 

“Gabby-” she starts, and Roland slowly, ponderously topples over onto his back, and then lets out a pitiful caterwauling shriek of alarm. For a moment Gabby looks deeply overwhelmed and weary, and she sits up, glancing around. 

“I’ll call the amah-nurse back-” she starts, and Verise sweeps up onto her feet.

“No need, lovey, he’s just frightened,” she says quickly, and scoops the future dinh of Gilead up into her arms, giving him a comforting jiggle and clucking softly at him. Thomas gives her a goggle-eyed look, confused and distressed by the sound of poor Roland’s cries, and she shoots her boy a small smile over Roland’s head.

“There, there, little Roland, you needn’t cry so, dear,” she murmurs, and when that doesn’t work to soothe him she tries one of the lilting songs the Sisters had drilled into them at the Abbey, from the  _ Penance: a Slave to Duty _ set of hymns. 

“Poor wand’ring one, though thou hast surely strayed,” she sings softly, and Roland quiets a little, sniffling sadly at her. “Take heart with grace, thy steps retrace, o poor wandering one-”

She stops, not because Roland is again quiet, but because Thomas is sitting bolt upright, looking at his pudgy little hands as though he’s never seen them before.

“Alright, Tommy?” she asks, and her boy nearly jumps, looking up at her with a frankly alarming expression, his mild hazel-colored eyes round as dinner plates. He screws himself up with a visible show of great effort, then holds his two little hands up towards her- no, she realizes, towards Roland. Without thinking overmuch she gently sets Roland down near him, giving him enough space to crawl closer- he’s a walker now, but seems to have difficulty moving on his knees, and she worries that he doesn’t move enough. 

“Veri, I don’t know that there’s a point to it, for neither of them can really-” Gabby says wearily, and then, wonder of wonders, Thomas does crawl forward, his little face still screwed up with great concentration. He reaches his little playmate and looks at him with the sweet little baby-grin that Verise knows and loves so well, and then surprises them all by grasping onto Roland and squealing in a high and unmistakable scream of delight, “ _ ROAN! _ ”

Verise splutters slightly, shocked despite her rising gladness, and points at their sons.

“What! See you this, Gabby, the boy’s first word and it’s-”

“ _ Roland _ ,” Gabby finishes, astounded, and the two young mothers exchange a look and burst into laughter. As for Roland himself, he does not squeak out any words of his own- Verise supposes that would have lifted Gabby’s spirits too much- but he clutches onto Thomas and lets out peals of gleeful baby-laughter as Thomas pats all over his face and arms and hands, occasionally pressing wide and wet open-mouthed kisses onto Roland’s cheeks. 

Later, even when it is time for their naps, Roland’s cradle-amah is unable to separate the two, and the boys nap like that, clinging to one another in their sleep. 

The change in Thomas over the next few weeks is simply remarkable. He is still the same delightfully sweet and loving boy- in fact, he is even  _ more  _ affectionate, clambering up onto Verise every time she comes to a stop, it seems. He climbs into her bed of a morning and sits half-on her and just watches her, cooing softly to himself while her eyes seem closed and grinning toothily when she stops pretending to be asleep.

No, there are no real changes in his personality, but the boy who’d never spoken a word suddenly cannot seem to stop himself from excitedly chattering away. Verise takes it as a very promising sign- surely some aspect of Rosey Ka that recognizes the deep and future love between Tommy and little Roland- and Gabrielle does seem to enjoy their visits, twice a week for the boys to wrestle around squeaking nonsense while they chat quietly and sip tea and nibble at small plates. Roland is always alert, and often chortling in the usual way of small babes, when they’re to visit- it certainly seems to make Gabby happy to see him this way, too.

Tommy’s favorite word- after Roland’s name, of course- is Mama, and she learns how to interpret the word by his tone- Mama-I-see-you, Mama-I-love-you, Mama-I’m-hungry, Mama-I’m-excited. Best of all- though most puzzling- is the soft and almost-longing tone he takes when he thinks she’s sleeping, watching her for a while and pressing his fat little cheek against her chest periodically, as if to feel her heartbeat. 

_ Mama-I-missed-you _ , she thinks that one is, and yet can’t imagine why he’d think such a thing. She can’t imagine that he’d know what a heart is, much less understand where it lies or what it means.

He surprises her, though- sometimes he’ll say a word that very clearly makes sense;  _ ball  _ and  _ up  _ and  _ privy  _ (though how he knows that one, she knows not, for he is still too small to sit on the bench unassisted- at least, she allows, he was extraordinarily quick to teach himself to use the chamber-pots, despite seeming uncharacteristically shy about using them.) Some words, though, are a mystery-  _ jay  _ confuses her, for he refuses to point to the drawing of a bluejay she makes for him when he says it, and  _ alm  _ or  _ aln  _ makes no sense, and only frustrates him when he tries to speak it- and he sometimes insists on calling out  _ bird  _ and  _ birdie _ , and again refuses to even look at the bluejay picture when he does. It’s all very strange.

The still-strangest thing  _ yet  _ happens when Verise takes Tommy down to the kitchens to visit Hax and ask a favor of him, and Tommy- who sometimes shies away from strangers- reaches out for him, insistently demanding to be taken. The good-natured castle cook- always popular with children, in these years that Verise has lived in the castle- takes her boy in his broad arms with a bemused smile. 

“Alright, little squire?” he asks, and Tommy puts both hands on his cheeks, eyes very round. 

“Be good,” Thomas says very clearly, blinking. “Stay. Don’t listen.”

“Oh my,” Verise comments, taken slightly aback. “That was very good, Tommy, but what do you mean, lovey?”

Thomas throws his arms around Hax’s neck in a childish embrace, and says something very quiet to him- and after a moment of stunned silence, Hax returns the hug, giving his back a soothing pat.

“No fear, little man, no fear at all,” he murmurs, and passes Tommy back to Verise. “That’s a very bright little boy, Veri.”

“He certainly is,” she agrees, holding Tommy on one hip as he presses his face into the side of her neck. “What was he saying, just then?”

“I couldn’t make all of it out,” Hax says apologetically, shrugging. “Sounded like he was telling me to be a good man, though.”

“What a thing to say!” she exclaims, and he grins at her. “Why, I’m positive he meant no offense by it-”

“Oh, I’m sure as well,” he replies, rubbing his cheek vigorously. “In my experience a little chap that age wouldn’t be so quick to lay a kiss on someone he was unhappy with.” 

“Oh,  _ Tommy _ , you can’t just go ‘round kissing everyone,” she sighs, and Hax laughs out loud at that- it’s an infectious sound, and she finds herself grinning back at him. 

“Well, there are worse things he could do, aren’t there? A sweet lad like that’d go far with the ladies, I’m sure,” he adds, and Verise chuckles a little bit.

“He’s a bit young for that, I think,” she says quickly. “Thank you for your kindness, sai.”

“And thank you for yours, milady,” he says, waving her out. Tommy doesn’t speak again until they’re nearly home, his face still pressed into her neck.

“Mmlilla,” she thinks she hears, and she shifts Tommy in her arms, facing him gravely.

“What’s that, my love?” she asks, and is surprised and a little hurt to see that tears are glimmering in his big, soft eyes, and spilling down his round cheeks.

“Am little,” he whimpers, and Verise blinks, gently wiping his tears.

“Aye, just a little one you are, but surely that’s just fine,” she says softly. “My little boy, you are. Small enough to hold and carry, still. That is all you need to be, dear.”

“No,” he says miserably, and clings onto her, pressing his face against her neck again, his voice muffled as he repeats himself, “no no no.”

“Oh, poor boy,” she murmurs, unsure of what has made him so sad and deeply sorry that it has. “What would make you glad, dear one? Would you like to say hello to Roland again, perhaps? Or-”

“Yes! No,” he says, looking torn. “Love Ro.”

“I know you do,” she agrees, continuing toward home. “I could take you to see him tomorrow, if you like-”

“No,” he nearly wails, tears of real frustration pouring over his reddening face. “No, want  _ jay _ , want  _ jay _ , Mama!”

“You want-” She pauses at their doorway, thinking about what he’s been saying. “Why- Tommy, is there a  _ person  _ named Jay?”

“Yes,” he breathes out, and for a moment the look of utter adoration that he normally reserves for her and for Roland crosses his sweet little face. “Good Jay, good Jay!”

“Oh, a very good Jay, then! Well, we will have to find this Jay, then, won’t we?” she asks, and he presses his face into her shoulder, fully  _ weeping  _ with gratitude. It’s… it’s unpleasant, only in that she thinks her boy far,  _ far  _ too young to even begin to feel all these enormous and confusing feelings, and she wants him to be happy and at peace, like all little boys his age should be.

Verise takes him to his nursery, and tucks him into his bed. “Why don’t you rest here while I begin making inquiries, lovey?”

“Make Jay come,” he agrees, looking near-physically exhausted after all that. “Jay come t’Tommy.”

“Exactly so, sweetkin,” she promises, kissing his forehead. That there is a real person by this name that Tommy is asking for specifically, she has no doubt- Jay and James and Jamie are all common enough names in New Canaan these past few years- but she’s not sure quite how Tommy knows them. She can’t think of any man, woman, or child by that name, but certainly her bright and observant little boy may have heard and remembered a meeting that she hadn’t. 

Verise pauses, gently laying a hand Tommy’s head to run her fingers through the sweaty mop of chestnut hair atop his darling head. “Tommy?”

“Mama,” he coos at her, eyes half-lidded. 

“Can you tell me what your Jay looks like?” she asks, and he sighs dreamily at her.

“Jay good,” he says, and yawns widely. “Jay good good good.”

“Aye, very good Jay,” she agrees, a smile tugging at her mouth despite herself. “Anything else?”

“Jay little, most little,” he says, and then, with great concentration, he holds his right hand up to her- making a point, she realizes, to show her the back of his hand, not his palm. “Jay red.”

“Why, do you say your Jay has a red  _ hand _ , Tom?” she asks, but alas! The boy cuddles against his pillow and is fully asleep, now.

A small child named Jay, then? Might still be hard to narrow down, but a small child with a single red hand, she thinks, why, that might be quite easy to find in this castle. 

She pauses, watching him sleep for another moment more. She’d had friends with the Touch before, back home in Argenbie Hold, and she’s reasonably certain that her Tommy does not possess it. Still, this doesn’t feel like the request of a babe who’d met someone memorable once- it feels older, somehow. It feels as though Thomas has been dying to make her understand, to make her find this Jay for him- and if Jay is a person, is it not possible then that there are others, that he’s been begging for them all this time? 

She thinks it’s more than possible. Verise reaches out, gently strokes a hand over his soft little cheek, and he mumbles sweetly in his sleep- something about a ball and Roland, she supposes that already his last playdate with the boy has tumbled back into the fore. 

Roland, who clearly is ka-tet with her little love. This Jay, then, might they also be? And might those words-  _ aln  _ and  _ bird _ , or is it  _ birdie _ ?- be the names of others in his tet? She thinks this is very likely the case. 

Verise smiles a little down at her son, making sure he is tucked safely under his coverlet before she rises. Just a quick letter, then- more of a note, really- to dear Abel Vannay, for she’s very certain that the kind old scholar will be more than able to help her understand who it is Tommy needs now. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

The first part of her little mystery solves itself, though, one fine morning in the marketplace a mere day after she receives a reply from Abel suggesting they meet soon. 

There is a break in the crowd, as Verise and Thomas browse through wide, reed-woven baskets of fresh flowers together- Tommy because he adores looking at and touching and smelling them, Verise because she’d like to make a few new arrangements for the sitting room before Abel comes to visit- and at the far end of the narrow alley- perhaps as many as forty or fifty feet away- dear lovely Theophania DeCurry emerges from the shop of an up-and-coming spice-seller, a basket of fresh and experimental floral teas slung over one arm. 

And at her side, his softly-rounded face a slightly lighter brown than Tiff’s and his bright, wide eyes examining the nearest fruit-seller with every sign of hungry interest, is her own two-year-old son, and his small right hand, a dark near-purple red, half in and half out of his mouth. 

Verise recognizes the little boy by his looks immediately, but before she can tell Tommy he spots the lad, and lets out a triumphant shriek. 

_ “JAY! JAY-MY-JAMIE-MINE-JAY! _ ” he howls outright, and takes off at a run. Verise gives chase, though not fast enough to break his fall when he slips ( _ on nothing _ , her worried mother’s mind murmurs, still active despite the excitement, he slips on nothing at all, his ankles and knees seem simply prone to giving way at a moment’s notice, as if he’d been poorly stitched together) and falls flat on his face against the cobblestones. 

“Oh my, Tommy, dear-” Verise starts, gently kneeling next to him. “Come here, lovey, no need to run, I’ll carry you.”

He lets her carry him a few steps, making slightly apologetic eye contact with Theophania- who she knows only as a very charming, if quiet, presence at gatherings, but well enough to remember her preferred nickname. Then Tommy wriggles until she allows him to stand, though he suffers bravely while she uses her sleeve to wipe the worst of the street-dirt from his face and hands before allowing him to close the gap between himself and the DeCurrys. 

“Well-met, Sai Whitman, what’s this?” Tiff asks lightly, and then Verise sees it- the same thing that happened to Tommy after he really looked at Roland for the first time, the same thing that happened to Roland when Tommy reached for him, that blaze of joyful recognition, so pure and lovely in the face of one so young. 

The boys collide in the street- Verise is sure that she’ll have to apologize, for she  _ does  _ think she hears a light crack as their bobble-headed skulls bounce off one another- but they’re both jabbering excitedly at one another, their fat little baby-arms ‘round one another’s necks, the both of them jumping up and down as if their tiny bodies simply cannot contain their glee and love and excitement. 

“My Tommy! My Tommy  _ there _ !” the little boy- Jamie DeCurry, Verise remembers- chortles, shooting his mother an adoring look. “Mama look my Tommy!”

“Your- your Tommy?” Tiff asks politely, shooting Verise a smile that runs over with love and faintly confused amusement. “Have the boys been introduced?”

“No, I believe they have not been,” Verise says mildly, before giving her a brief curtsey. “And we’ve been introduced before, dear, so please call me as a friend does, aye, Verise or Veri if you’d like.”

“Then, as a friend, Veri- what, may I ask, is going on here?” And though she is visibly happy to see her son laughing excitedly with a child his age, Verise detects the same curious concern she’s been feeling ever since she realized that her son was begging to be united- or, reunited?- with the members of his ka-tet. 

“I think we have a great deal to discuss,” Verise says simply, offering an arm to escort her back to their apartments. “Tell me, though, Tiffany or Tiff?”

“Both suit, but I think ‘tis safe to say we’ll be very close from now on,” the lady mother says wryly, smiling at the way their sons have clamped onto one another. “Tiff for my closest and my sisters, and I should think you’ll be there soon if you hadn’t already.”

“Tiff it is,” Verise proclaims. “Well, let us take these two back to my home, and they can discuss toys and flowers and whatever else they have to discuss. You and I, I think, will have to compare notes and discuss the workings of ka, instead.” 

“Heavy talk, indeed,” Tiff comments, gently leading the boys by the shoulder- pressed so close to one another, and being as small as they are, even her tiny hand can engulf both to lead them along. “I’ll have to feed the little one at some point, though-”

“My dear Tiff,” Verise proclaims happily, her eyes falling on her son’s face as he lovingly pats a hand over Jamie’s cheek, “my home is certainly open to you, and we will absolutely be luncheoning together at my expense, no questions asked. This will be a very long talk, indeed.”

By the time Colton returns from his latest weeks-long mission out in the Eastern edges of civilization, the three boys have regular standing appointments with each other and with Abel, who brings his sweet Wallace with him to allow the children someone to interact with when he’s got one or two lads aside. 

“It’s simply extraordinary,” Abel says later to the three mothers gathered together. “None of these boys is particularly gifted with the Touch- no more than your average child who is destined to the gun, anyway- but clearly they are strongly aware of each other’s ka as well as their own, as if they’d shared  _ khef  _ so many times that it slips naturally from mind to mind. It is quite remarkable,” he adds, giving his little boy’s fluffy head a pat. “Next week, then, ladies?”

It is only after Gabrielle and Theophania leave, some time later, that Colton shows himself- and when he carefully remarks that it must be nice to have so many ladies and children around the home, it seems clear that he stood and watched them leave, at least for a little while. 

“So the lad speaks, now?” Colton asks, after pleasantries have been exchanged. “I’d see it, if it’s true, for he didn’t seem capable when last I saw him.” 

“Of course it’s true,” Verise says, frowning. “Why, what would it profit me to say so if he wasn’t, Col? Regardless of that, Gabrielle Deschain and Tiffany DeCurry  _ and  _ Abel Vannay have all seen him at it; interrogate one of  _ them  _ if you’d not take the word of your own wife as proof.”

“Easy, wild one,” he says mildly. “No need for you to throw such venom, Verise.”

“At any rate, Tommy may be awake still, but I put him down for a nap when his little friends left,” Verise says, frost blazing through her. Colton gives her a small, disapproving glance.

“You know how I feel about making the boy sound silly,” he says flatly. “What gunslinger was ever called  _ Tommy _ ? Bad enough those that still slip and call Robert  _ Bobby  _ ‘fore an execution.”

“The other boys call him so, what will you do about it, curse the winds and hang the sails?” she snaps, and he makes a face, as he usually does when she dips into one of the sayings of her father’s people- but also, as he usually does, he lets the topic slide for now. “Suppose you might put an eye on your only son before you left the house again, though.”

“Yes, I’ll look in on him,” Colton says, and Verise has but a moment to start tidying her writing desk to prepare a letter to one of her friends who lives in the castle before there is an ungodly, terrified shriek from Tommy’s nursery. 

She bumps into Colton as he backs out of the door, looking deeply shocked. “What’d you  _ do? _ ” she asks, before grasping his arm and moving him bodily from her path.

“I didn’t do anything, I just stepped in here and he started screaming,” Colton says, sounding startled and annoyed. 

Tommy is curled up on the nursery bed- he’d apparently snuck out of it to grab some parchment and a few stubs of pencil, and had been carefully drawing little figures in bed, it seems, when his father’d entered the room- and he is no longer screaming but weeping, rocking himself in place and hiding his face.

“Oh, lovey, what ails you, Tom?” Verise asks softly, gathering him up into her arms, and he shudders against her and clutches at her dress and moans wordlessly, sobs wracking his tiny body. “Oh, Tommy, are you hurt, dear?” 

“Of course he’s not hurt,” Colton snaps, but at her neck Tommy is mumbling a chain of barely-coherent words:  _ bad-tommy-no-tommy-bad-boy-tommy-no-daddy-never-no _ . 

She gives Colton a sharp glare that stops even that hardened gunslinger in his steps. 

“What?” he asks defensively. “You can’t think that somehow in the space of a few seconds that I  _ did  _ anything-”

“No,” she says coldly, stroking a hand down Tommy’s back- her sweet boy, who knows the faces and names of his best and closest ka-mates, who knows them as well as if he’d lived an entire lifetime with them before now. “I’m sure you haven’t had a chance, yet.”

“Yet?” he asks, bristling. “Look here, woman-”

“I believe you know my name,” she says, whipcrack-sharp, “and you  _ may  _ even remember that my title is  _ Captain _ . If you will not claim love or respect for me as your wife or as mother of your heir, you will find your stay here very silent indeed.”

“This is a step too far,” he says, and at her furious glare he rolls his eyes, adding, “Verise. You cannot mean that you’re angry with me for- for nothing, for the whining nonsense of some simple-headed child with the Speaking Sickness.”

Verise’s arms tighten around her still-weeping son, and she marvels at how cold and distant she feels over the mantle of murderous fury she’s carrying toward her husband. 

“Haven’t you got some barroom brothel or whorehouse you meant to visit today?” she asks, acid dripping from every word. “Surely this conversation is cutting into your usual appointments, sai.”

“Christ and the Man Jesus,” he mutters in apparent disgust. “You’ve made up your fool mind already, there’s naught I could say nor do to soothe you otherwise-”

“So go,” she says firmly. “No one forces you to endure my company, aye? Go and spend the night you’d planned with some open-legged penny-gilly, then.”

“Viper,” he says dully, stepping back from her. “Why, I ought to take you over a knee and correct this filthy tongue of yours-”

“A desperately foolish man would finish that sentence,” she says, baring her teeth. “A most incredibly and suicidally foolish man, aye.”

“Fucking heathen woman,” he mutters, and slams his way out of their apartments. 

Verise doesn’t know that Colton  _ could  _ have put a hand on Tommy in the amount of time he had, but she checks his little hands and arms and neck anyway, stroking the tears from his round little cheeks. Once she is satisfied that he doesn’t seem to be physically hurt- for now, at least- she gently puts him down on the very middle of his bed. 

“I think tonight you and I will be spending some time with one of my old friends, Tom, how do you like that?” she asks, and he rubs his eyes at her, blinking. “So I would like you to sit quite still here and finish your drawing until I am done putting our things in my bag, alright, lovey?”

“Y’s, Mama,” he says shyly, and she gives him a small kiss.

“You’re my very best boy, Tommy,” she says seriously, and he blushes. 

It is very short work to gather up what things she needs, and only a little more to gather up some things for Tommy, as well. He very obediently puts his drawings and pencils away into the little canvas sack he insists on carrying himself, and even gets himself dressed while she’s packing, looking like such a little man when he’s done that her heart nearly aches to see him. She walks side by side with him, holding his little hand- and then, in a way that somehow does not surprise her one bit- he pulls a little ahead, leading her to an apartment that she knows he’s never been to. 

She  _ knows  _ the look of bursting anticipation on his little face, as he bounces in place next to her. She knocks briskly on Lavinia Allgood’s door, and is unsurprised to see Robert answer it himself.

“Oh, hello, Sai Whitman,” he says politely. “Oh, say, is that your little boy?” 

“It is,” she says, and he crouches down, offering Thomas his hand. 

“Well-met, Thomas! The last time I saw you, why, you were no bigger than a kitten, now look at you! Practically grown, aren’t you?” he asks, beaming, and after a shy glance at her Tommy gingerly takes his hand and lets him shake it. Robert pats his head and stands back up, giving Verise a good-natured smile. “What brings you ‘round, Sai?”

“For this, I think, I will have to speak to both you and Vinnie,” she says, and he nods- he’s a gunslinger, after all, and knows the look of a hastily packed overnight bag if he saw one. 

“Of course, you’re welcome in our home for as long as you need,” he says kindly, and Verise feels her eyes prickle a little at the realization that he does truly mean it. “Let’s go see if my wife and daughter are of a mood to speak- say, you haven’t met little Elliana yet, have you, Thomas?”

“No?” Tommy murmurs, sounding confused. Then he yawns, and Robert grins at her, visibly charmed.

“It’s naptime, isn’t it? I cry your pardon, wee man,” he says, tipping Verise a jolly wink as he leads them into the sitting room. Lavinia enters moments later, all smiles- and as soon as she spots Thomas, her face lights up, and Verise’s normal well of affection for her lady friend swells enormously at the sight of it. 

“Oh, my, I can’t believe how big and handsome you’ve grown, Thomas,” she coos, and Thomas presses his crimson face into Verise’s skirt, squeaking. Vinnie beams at him, and at Verise. “Tis naptime for Elliana, you know, why don’t we let Tommy take a nap in the nursery as well for now? We’ll wake the children up for tea-cakes and fresh juice, how does that sound, dear?”

“Oh, it sounds wonderful, doesn’t it, Tommy?” Verise asks, and Tommy squeaks something like a yes at her. The poor dear’s rubbing his eyes and failing to keep his head up by the time Verise carries him back to the nursery, and Lavinia moves the coverlet aside so that Verise can tuck him in.

“Well, dear heart,” Lavinia says, as soon as they’re outside the nursery door. “How much of what’s happened do you wish to tell us?”

“I think I will have to start with what I know for absolute fact,” Verise says, sitting down and accepting a delicate cup of tea from Robert. “And then I will have to move on to that which I do not know but only guess from the evidence.”

She imagines that all of what she’s seen and heard and felt over the past few weeks would take at least a number of hours to tell- yet, in the end, it almost feels that no time has passed at all. She has time to drink her tea and then be poured a second cup, which goes cold in her hands as she finishes her tale.

Verise stares down into it now, frowning softly. “You don’t think me mad, do you? Even Abel Vannay agrees-”

“Of course not,” Vinnie reassures her quickly. “No more than usual, love.” She flashes a quick smile and a somewhat more invigorating wink than Robert’s, to signify that she’s only teasing. “It sounds very like you have narrowly missed something terrible happening, if… if poor young Thomas has some innate understanding of ka, or of what relationships he has or will have.”

She frowns, giving her husband a sudden severe glare that makes him lean back in his seat. “And you! Now would be a fine time to mention if Colton’s said anything untoward about his wife or son, Bobby.”

“Not in my presence, he hasn’t,” Robert says, casting a worried glance to Verise. “He is an odd man, but I have never heard or felt him to do anything that would bring harm to a child.”

“Yet,” Verise murmurs, and he nods unhappily.

“I know  _ not yet _ is not the same as  _ never _ ,” he says. “But I cannot enact justice over a man who hasn’t committed a crime and only might. T’wouldn’t be justice, then.”

Verise nods her agreement, though Lavinia sniffs a little at that, clearly unsatisfied. 

“Well, until such a time that little Thomas is able to clearly articulate what worries him so, I think it is simply best all ‘round if we simply keep that man from having any access to him,” she says firmly. “Verise, my dear, I beg of you to stay here with us, and treat this home as your own.”

Verise does cry a little at that, her face in her hands- and, after a moment, Vinnie sits at her side, an arm around her shoulders. Verise is nearly finished- just in the lingering sniffles stage of it, really- when there is a high and precious little voice from the doorway.

“Ma, there is a  _ boy  _ in my room,” the child- must be the Allgood child she has yet to meet- says, speaking so articulately that Verise is quite surprised to see for herself that the child is the same age as her Thomas, perhaps even slightly younger. And yes, she sees it now- absolutely a child of Robert Allgood if she ever saw one, practically his tiny twin with a thick, glossy curtain of black hair. 

“Yes, sweetheart, we put him in there,” Vinnie says, and Verise has to fight the urge to smile at the comical outrage on little Elliana’s face. “It’s his naptime, too, see.”

“Boy in  _ my  _ room,” Elliana says stubbornly.

“If you wanted to play with him, I could wake him up,” Verise suggests mildly. 

“And you could both have some cake and juice in a little bit, too,” Vinnie adds, and after a moment the fox-faced little two-year-old nods solemnly. 

Verise and Lavinia see it together, for they both go to the nursery- Lavinia to open a window for some light, Verise to wake Tommy up. The light shows Tommy’s sleeping face, nestled like a coveted gem in the center of one of the bed’s pillows- and it shows the dawning recognition and delight on Elliana’s face. Both mothers see it, though neither is fast enough to stop the child from launching bodily onto Thomas in his sleep.

“ _ TOMMY! _ Oh, it’s Tommy, Ma, it’s  _ Tommy _ , see?” There is a gentle, sleepy squawking from Thomas, and then he peeks up at the toddler sitting on his midsection- and then he squeals, just as loud, waving his arms until Elliana clambers back from him so he can sit up.

“Birdie-Birdie-Birdie-Bird!” he cries out, and the two of them tumble into one another’s arms, thankfully without knocking their foreheads together like he had when he ran into Jamie. 

Vinnie gives Verise a troubled smile. “Well,” she says faintly. “I… suppose ‘tis a good enough example of what you spoke of, isn’t it?”

“Aye, seems to be,” Verise says, sitting heavily on the edge of the bed. “Dears, may I ask you something?”

“Birdie,” Tommy chortles, burying his face against his new friend- or, well, his old friend, possibly. 

“Yes,” Elliana-Birdie says primly. “I’m good at answering.”

“Good at all manner of speech, you are,” Vinnie agrees.

“It seems that you two are friends, aye?” Verise asks. “And your other little friends-”

“Roland,” the toddler replies firmly. Verise glances at Vinnie, who nods.

“Yes, the two of them have been playing in the same cradle since they were born,” Vinnie says, a hand on her face. “Gabrielle and Robert share a grandfather, you know.”

“Do you know a little boy by the name of Jamie DeCurry, then?” Verise prompts, and Elliana-Birdie’s eyes and mouth become little O’s of shock and upset.

“I want Jamie,” she says thunderously, taking a deep breath. “Want Jamie here  _ now _ . I want-”

“Oh, we can absolutely bring all your friends for a visit, no doubt about that,” Verise says quickly. “Tommy, can you perhaps tell your little friend here-”

“Birdie,” Tommy says, although… does that sound correct? Verise isn’t sure, now, if Bird is the sound he’s making. “Birdie, yes.”

“-what’s the name of your last friend, dear, the last one we need to find?” she asks softly, and Tommy’s eyes light up and he grabs Elliana by the arms.

“Aln! Aln-Aln-Aln,” he chatters excitedly, and Elliana draws up a little.

“ _ Al-ain _ , Tommy,” she corrects fondly, then, realizing the significance of the name, repeats it at a full bellow. “ALAIN! MA! Ma I want Alain  _ I want now  _ I want Alain Ma I want-”

“Why, you don’t mean Alain Johns, do you, dear?” Verise asks- she hasn’t met the boy yet, but Gabrielle’s mentioned him. She and Vinnie exchange a sharp glance. 

“Tell you what, you two. We’ll arrange it so the Johnses and the DeCurries can come visit-”

Elliana’s foxy face scrunches up, teeth bared. “ _ No Doctor _ . No Doctor, Ma, only Jamie.”

“Well, Jamie and Jamie’s mummy, dear,” Verise says, worried. Thomas nods unsteadily, beaming at her. He likes Tiffany, she knows. He gives Vinnie’s child a gentle nudge.

“Jamie’s mum is very nice,” Vinnie offers, and Tommy gently reaches over and tugs on Vinnie’s skirt. “Yes, sweetkin?”

“I love you, Lady Vinnie-sai,” he murmurs bashfully, and Lavinia breathes out a soft cooing sigh.

“Oh, I love you too, Tommy,” she says, patting his head. “Will the two of you be very good and play nicely while we send a message to the Johnses?”

“Yes, very good, Ma!” 

Thomas nods, after being nudged bodily by Elliana’s pointy elbow. “Aye, good Tommy, aye!”

It is a few days before Christopher Johns is able to bring his three children- all of them, which he apologizes gruffly for, as there’s no one at home to mind the girls, the usual nursemaid is abed with a fever. Gabrielle and Roland are there, of course, and Tiffany and Jamie as well, and when Alain can finally be pried away from his sisters- who aren’t too much older than he is, in all honesty- he takes one look at the gathered children and bursts into tears.

“I waited and waited!” he wails, and Roland- who is for now the smallest, and who has never spoken before- gently wraps his arms around little Alain, and kisses his cheeks.

“My good Alain,” he croons sweetly, and if there was ever a doubt in anyone’s mind that these children belonged together, those three words- spoken in the deeply innocent and loving voice of a babe not yet two years old- cast those doubts away. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Seven things happen over the next three years. 

The first time all five children- all five boys, indeed, for by the time he turns three he makes himself known and Vinnie Allgood’s son is known formally as Cuthbert (Bertie, Verise remembers later, it wasn’t birdie at all but  _ Bertie _ )- are together and see Dr. DeCurry enter the same room, they all go utterly silent and still, watching the man’s movements with every sign of visible hatred. Tiffany and Verise and Vinnie all see the boys move as one, standing in a single fluid movement that reminds her quite uncomfortably of the fact that her son, like all these boys, is destined for the gun. She sees flat murder in her sweet and loving son’s eyes; at her side, Lavinia sucks in a breath, glancing first at her own knife-sharp son, then at Tiffany-

-Tiffany, whose eyes are lowered, her hands clenched together, trembling slightly. 

“Well, look at that,” Dr. DeCurry says easily, in the voice of a man who does not yet realize the danger he’s in. “You boys playing nicely for your mothers, then?”

“No,” Thomas says furiously, tears already springing to his eyes. 

“Ha! An honest lad, then,” the doctor says merrily, stepping past them into his office- and if any one of them was holding something sharper than the soft rag poppets Melisende and Claire let their brother borrow, Verise thinks the doctor would have been stabbed with it. Jamie’s eyes are wide and glassy and his nostrils are flaring as he struggles to breathe without crying; Alain, his pink face gone very white, is already crying a little. And then there’s Tommy, who looks very much like he might spring after the man anyway, armed with nothing but his fists and teeth.  _ Never  _ has Verise felt such an air of menace from this group of toddlers- even knowing they’re for the gun, she wouldn’t have thought it possible.

The door shuts, and Verise stands, gently taking Tommy’s fist in her hand. “Come, dear, let us go speak quietly for a moment. You and your Mama, aye?”

“Aye,” he whispers sulkily, and she leads him into the familiar comfort of Jamie’s nursery, shutting the door behind her. He flings himself at her, hiccuping into her shoulder. “Bad.”

“You’re not bad, though, are you, Tom?” she asks softly, and he shakes his head miserably. “What’s wrong, dear?”

“Bad,” he repeats, sniffling. “Hurt my Jamie.”

“You think that man hurt your Jamie? Why, Tommy? The doctor is Jay’s father, did you know?” she asks, and he nods, his eyes and nose running. “Did you see him do such?”

“Jamie said,” Tommy explains, sniffling. “Yesterday.” 

Knowing full well that they did not see Jamie or his mother yesterday, Verise still pauses, for Tommy usually defaults to saying things happened  _ yesterday  _ when it was any time before the last time he laid down to sleep. She gives his hair a pat, stroking it away from his face. 

“How many yesterdays ago did Jamie say, lovey?” she asks softly, and he bursts into tears.

“Lots,” he sobs, and she folds him to her chest, thinking quickly. She thinks that Lavinia will trust her intuition, and Thomas’s, and her own son’s- and, frankly, even if she didn’t, it was clear by Tiff’s fearful demeanor just now that she likely isn’t safe with the man, and if she isn’t, then Jamie isn’t. 

And she’s right, of course, about Vinnie trusting her intuition: within the week Tiffany and Jamie are staying in the Allgood apartments with Verise and Tommy, who literally screams with delight every time he opens a door to find Jamie there. 

The second time Verise and Tommy are spending an evening having a relaxing private dinner with Abel and Wallace, Cortland Andrus- the fearsome teacher of future gunslingers- comes by, and is visibly surprised to see anyone else there. 

He is a rough man, but takes tea with the embarrassed ease of one who’s been caught at his private life and sees no point in trying to hide it further. Verise revisits her earlier- and, to be fair, moderately misinformed- opinion of the man, though she still tenses a little when Tommy and Wally come in from their play and Tommy freezes up at the sight of him. 

“Oh, there’s a brace of future ‘prentices, then,” Cort says, in his growling way, and Tommy visibly steels himself before marching up to the man. Verise and Abel exchange an uneasy look- she knows what gunslinger training might be like, and Abel’s been told about how the boys reacted to Dr. DeCurry- but instead of doing something rash or violent Tommy holds up his arms and bounces on his heels, clearly reaching for Cort to pick him up.

“What’s this, lad?” he asks gruffly, obliging the toddler boy with one hefty arm. “What’re you lookin’ for, then?”

“Make Leeny come here,” Thomas says sternly, and both Cort and Abel do a double-take at him. “Make Leeny come live here. Must.”

“Why, Wallace, have you been tellin’ your little pal here tales?” Cort asks sharply, glancing at Abel’s son, who swiftly shakes his head, burying his face against the side of Verise’s hip. Cort furrows his brows, examining Thomas’s reddening face closely. “Do you say so, then, lad? My Aileen, to live here?”

Tommy nods vigorously, eyes bright. “Yes, sai! Love Leeny, love very much, sai. Is…” He scrunches up his face. “Is bad there. Want Leeny to come live.” 

Cort considers this pronouncement, gazing evenly at the boy in his arms, and eventually Tommy starts squirming to be let go. 

“Well,” Cort says, after a tense moment of silence, and he releases Tommy to rejoin Wally in the safe haven of Verise’s billowing skirts. “It seems I’ve got to make haste, then, and send a message to my sister and her husband. It seems I’ve got to be quite convincing this time, and have them come here to live- so, Abel, Lady Whitman, I’ll have to take my leave of you.”

“You- you understand what he said, though?” Verise asks- not timidly, but cautiously, because she doesn’t know the name Leeny or Aileen, and the idea of such a small boy fiercely proclaiming his love for a girl he’s never met would have been laughable a year ago. 

“Well, Abel’s spoken to me a little- just some, mind you- about the lad’s ka-tet knowing one another already,” Cort says, waving a broad hand. “Let’s just say I’m enough a believer in the workings of the Beams to know when I  _ don’t  _ know all the answers, and to know when to accept that sometimes the voice of ka isn’t what I expect it to be.” 

Sure enough, within eight weeks’ time there is a small girl with fluffy tufts of dark hair perched on Cort’s shoulder when Verise meets him again in the marketplace. 

On Thomas’s third birthday Colton calls her and Thomas to him for a formal appointment; remembering the helpless, horrified weeping of her sweet son, Verise asks and is granted that Robert come along too, as her chaperone. At three years old Tommy has grown quite a bit since Colton last saw him, but if he notices the change in his height or the subtle differences as his baby-round face grew slightly less babyish or round, he doesn’t say. 

“Come sit with your Daddy, my son,” Col rumbles, and Thomas- visibly terrified and disgusted as he is- is naturally obedient, and would have done as the man asked if Robert (who poor wee Tommy has settled on calling Uncle Bobby-sai) hadn’t put out his hand, gently stopping Tommy from moving forward.

“Colton, you’ve been at a drink or two today, haven’t you?” Robert asks calmly, and Colton blinks at him, and all at once Verise is filled with a hysterical terror- he’s only faking weakness, Robert, he’s only faking drunk, the wolf puts his hands in Mama’s soft-soft-soft throat the wolf puts his teeth in Mama’s soft-soft-soft skin- and she draws Tommy closer, realizing with a wave of dismayed horror and sadness that this isn’t  _ her  _ thought at all that spirals towards such violence. Her son is shaking against her, like a cornered rabbit.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Colton asks quietly. “Is a day of celebration, is it not? The third anniversary of the birth of my heir.”

“True enough, but you know I can’t in good conscience allow a man who’s been drinking in arm’s reach of a toddler or a lady,” Robert says, not even bothering to sound apologetic. “Besides this-and-that, friend, even if the drink weren’t a sly devil in most men’s ears, why, just think of the accidental damage one could do to something as delicate as these two poorly-stitched ones, with strong hands all unsteadied by the old Graf Man.”

“That is all such horseshit and you know it,” Colton says, eyes flashing. “Why should I be gazed upon thusly, as if I were some common criminal, some grass-eating freeholder who sees wifebeating as weekend’s entertainment? It’d do you well to remember just this, that I am a gunslinger, that I never have laid so much as a finger on either of them, despite the fact that the Book does so clearly state that those who spareth the rod-”

“Tis a miracle, then, for this boy has never so much as looked pert at another, and therefore never been in need of said rod to begin with,” Robert interrupts, smiling blandly. “A very good and well-behaved boy, is young Thomas.”

“Doesn’t take after his mother, then, does he?” Colton snipes, and Verise would laugh scornfully, but she can see that Robert is losing his patience with this. 

“Speak, Colton, or say naught and we’ll have our leave,” she says. “Aye, so we will. What have you brought us here for?”

And for a moment- just one short and glorious moment- she thinks she knows. She thinks he has called them here to officially rebuke her, and cast her and the son he no longer claims from his home and family line, and disinherit Thomas from his birthright- as a lord of Gilead, and as a lord of the gun, and as the one day wielder of the huge old peacemakers-

- _ lovely machines _ , she thinks in a voice that sounds both like and unlike her little Tommy,  _ Parsifal’s machines _ -

-and would that not be grand? Would it not be kinder, aye, and cleaner? For without the chain of the Whitman name, why, Tommy could be anything, could be anyone, could be free of the road of sorrow and horror that gunslingers walk-

-and Colton has never known her mind, not at all, but he stares into her face, and she realizes that he might have always known, anyway, how she likes the idea of Tommy one day fighting under Colton’s old banner. 

And Colton smiles, and a hundred thousand different lives of peace and gentleness are cut away from the branches of Tommy’s future in that one scythelike cut. 

“Just wanted to see my boy, Verise,” he says. “Should like to know that he’s being raised up in the proper way of a gunslinger, after all. If he fails, there’ll be no one left to take my place as holder of my guns- there are no other heirs, you know full well.”

“Fear not in that regard, Col,” Robert says pleasantly. “The boy is surrounded by his ka-tet at all times, any lack in his training will be bolstered by their companionship.”

“Sai Allgood speaks true,” Verise says, and oh, how she’d like to have killed this man before another gunslinger heard him acknowledge Thomas as his heir. “He is doing an excellent job of instructing Thomas in the ways of a gunslinger.”

Robert blushes faintly- just a little, up the back of his neck and into his ears- but Colton sees it, and for a moment there is a flash of jealousy. Verise could laugh- jealous of what? That the child Colton never wanted to know or see spends time with the kind father of one of Tommy’s closest friends? That she speaks fondly of this man- that she’d speak fondly of any man, aye, as if  _ that’s _ something she holds much interest in? 

“I suppose that’s all we can hope for, isn’t it?” Colton asks lightly, and Thomas clutches onto her side and presses his face into her hip, but Colton doesn’t ask to see him again, not until Tommy’s begun his gunslinger training and is under the vigilant supervision of Cort and Abel. 

It’s while she’s writing the last line on the fourth page of her letter to her brother, Tobias, that Tommy pads softly into the room and hums softly into her arm. 

“Writin’ what?” he asks, still a little nap-dozy, and she shows him, just in case it triggers the sudden emergence of the ability to read- which, more and more, she suspects he’s learned before. She’s toyed with the idea off and on for the last year and a half- certainly, Abel says, mildly astounded, while Tommy doesn’t have the Touch in the traditional sense, but he nevertheless has  _ something  _ about him that expands and strengthens it in those who do, and being so close with Alain and Wally has given Abel a very clear set of what he calls anecdotal data on the matter. Verise thinks there’s more to it than the confusion of two playmates with sudden strength in the Touch bleeding over into his mind, though- Roland and Jamie were the first two children to have contact with Tommy, after all, and some of the things Tommy’s said and done since that fateful day in Roland’s crib-pen would only make sense if Thomas had somehow lived through some of these things before. 

Tobias had actually been writing to her about it- he and his twin, their brother Tybalt, have traveled up and down the coastline and even have a shaky foothold in a port not too far from the biggest Troitan camps, and have heard of this kind of thing before. Not that it exists, no, but some of the religions speak of it- the Manni, she understands, and some of the pagan tribes believe that it is possible to be cursed to live the same life again and again. 

But Tommy shows no sign of being able to read, and merely gives Verise a hopeful glance. 

“I’m writing a letter to your Uncle Toby,” she says. “As well as passing on our love to your Uncle Tibby, and your Granddad. He’s also a Tommy, did you know that?”

“I have uncles  _ and  _ a granddad?” he asks, and she doesn’t let it trouble her heart that he doesn’t know this, no, but it does put her in mind to go on and beg her family to come visit, now. 

“You do, my love, for I didn’t spring up out of the waters like the Lady-Stars and their Sisters,” she says, a little teasingly, but he puts his hand in his mouth and gives her a cooing smile.

“You  _ did _ ,” he says, giggling as she lifts him up onto her lap. “You did, Mama, you did, you’re lady-star too.”

“Do you say so, my Tommy?” she asks softly, and he snuggles close, making the dear little happy noises only a small boy can make. 

“I do say so, I say my Mama,” he murmurs, and she kisses his forehead. The matter is settled: she determines to write her brothers and father at once, so that they could come visit. He cocks his head to one side, bright as a little bird, and puts his hand on his mother’s face, admiring the shape and look of it. 

“What are you thinking about, my love?” she asks, and he smiles, and all the sweetness of the world is in it. 

“Will you write me a letter?” he asks seriously, and she strokes his back a little. “Write a letter to my friend?”

“Which friend, lovey? Perhaps… a letter to your Jamie?” she asks teasingly, and he gasps softly, as if thunderstruck by the idea that they  _ could  _ write a letter to the boy who lives just down the hallway from him. 

“I- I want-” he trails off, and she hugs him close. 

“We can do that later, aye? You must have a different friend you’d like me to write, though, don’t you?” she prods gently, and Tommy straightens up, nodding.

“Y’s. My friend General Lady-sai,” he says primly, and she blinks at him. “Want to write a letter to my friend.” 

“You have a friend who is a general named Lady?” she asks, and he guffaws.

“No, Mama, General Lady-sai,” he chortles. “She is a, a lady. She is,” he licks his lips carefully, thinking. “Lady General. She’s my friend. I want to write a letter, please.”

“Well, let’s think, dear. What do you wish to say to your… your friend?” she asks carefully. It’s… certainly very odd. There are no female military leaders in Gilead, certainly- there are female Captains both a-ship and of the docks, in the coastal Baronies, but none that ever reached the height of a general during times of war- but-

-well, she’s not sure if her first suspicion about what sort of people might have a lady act as a general is correct. 

“I want… say… Hile, General Lady-sai,” he starts, and she nods encouragingly. “Say… cry pardon for, I bit you, sorry.”

“My love,  _ you  _ never bit anyone,” Verise starts, and he shakes his hands impatiently.

“Yesterday I did,” he explains, rubbing his face. He’s just a boy of three, and still confuses yesterday with last week, last month, last year. “It was yesterday. I didn’t want to. She wanted to be good, Mama, she wanted to be nice.”

“Do you say so?” she asks carefully, and he chirrups at her. “What else do you want to say to her, dear?”

“Say, that…” he gives her a helplessly frustrated look. “Important, Mama, say… say that… please. Please come. Tell her please come.”

“Why, where is she, love?” she asks, and he points to the window.

“Very far,” he explains miserably. “It’s too late when she comes. I want her to come now. I must tell her, and… and then we’ll be friends. And I want to know how she makes the green color look just so, for I can’t do it, I can’t yet make green just like that.”

“Alright, then-” Verise starts, and he wiggles.

“And say from your friend love Tommy,” he adds, and she nods gravely.

“I will. Sure. Would you perhaps… draw for me a picture, so I may have some help sending the letter to her?” Verise asks, handing Thomas one of his pencil stumps and a sheet of parchment. As always, his eyes light up when he is handed something to draw with- the only time that compares to the pure delight on his face is, of course, every time his gaze falls on his dear best friend, Jamie. 

“Colors too? Colors may I, Mama?” he gushes, and she smiles, passing over the small tin of pressed-wax crayons that her father’d sent to them just last year. 

“Did you know, love, t’was your Granddad Tommy who sent you these?” she asks, and his eyes go comically wide and round, and he cradles the tin to his chest, like some sort of precious and delicate artifact. 

“I  _ love  _ Granddad,” he breathes out, and she pats his fluffy little head and directs him toward the charmingly small children’s desk at the wall. 

The rest of the letter to her brother is a bit longer than she’d originally intended, for it now includes a request to send Tommy’s picture and dictated letter- if at all possible- toward the person he described. 

A soft noise of frustration makes her turn, and for a second she sees- well, she still sees a boy of three, of course- but for a moment the curve of his shoulders and back, the way his face falls into his hands, and the unhappy twist of his mouth all give her the impression not of a child but of a sad and desperate man. He looks miserably up at her, just her sweet little child after all, and there are tears glimmering in his dark eyes. 

“Hands don’t work right,” he whimpers, and she stands and comes near him at once, gently running her fingers through his hair and letting him sniffle into her skirts. “The picture isn’t good, Mama.”

“I think as your mother I’d be the judge of that, dearest,” Verise suggests, and after a moment’s thought he bobs his head in a nod and reaches the parchment up to her. 

It is not a beautiful drawing, but only because the drawing itself depicts a very alien person- a woman in a short skirt and boots that end just under the pale flesh of her knees. She looks to have a very blue face and pointed teeth, with blue and green lines on her arms and chest and stomach, even on what’s visible of her breasts between the material of an open vest. She is holding a ball in one hand- also blue- and seems to be making a very grumpy face. There is also a waist-height red-breasted robin on the page, but that, she knows, is probably just a passing fancy and not part of the intended drawing.

It’s no great work of portraiture, but Verise knows a Troitan warrior when she sees one. 

“I think this is a very good picture, Thomas,” she says evenly. It is, she reckons, better than she’d expect of a boy twice his age or more- certainly she doesn’t think she’d be able to reproduce it herself at this level of skill or detail in the amount of time he’s had- and she wonders if he’s remembering a yesterday when he  _ was  _ capable of more, when he was old enough to make something even closer to life. 

“It’s General Lady-sai,” he mumbles into her leg. 

“She seems very interesting, lovey,” Verise says, after a moment. “It helps very much to know what places to look for her, though. What are the green and blue lines for, is that- some sort of a shirt, then?”

“No, it’s- it’s lines in her skin, of ink,” Tommy explains brightly, looking up at her and showing her his bare, untattooed forearm. “See like-” He pauses, looking at his arm as if he’s never seen it before, tracing a finger in the shape, she can see, of an anchor. “Anchors is for home.”

“Yes, lovey, anchors are for home,” Verise says, and he turns his soft, beaming face up to her. 

“My rose is for  _ you  _ my  _ Mama _ ,” he chortles, and buries his face against her leg again, chuckling shyly at her. 

“Do you say so, my precious boy?” Verise asks, scooping him up in one arm, and he throws his arms around her, his face still tomato red. 

“I do, I do say so,” he grins, and she knows it is so. 

It is not as difficult as Verise initially thinks it will be to find the mysterious general. A mere five weeks after she sends the letter containing Tommy’s picture to her brother, a courier comes to the castle bearing a light wooden box wrapped in woven reeds. 

“Who’s this from?” Verise asks slowly, for it is addressed to her- well, to the Lady V. Malatesta And Child- and bears no mark indicating where it came from. 

“I know not, Sai, it was passed along to me by another courier,” the young man says cheerfully- and when he turns after being paid in a couple of small coins, she sees the wink of blue and green tattoos under his rolled sleeves. Verise is not foolish enough to hope that  _ no one  _ would respond to a small boy’s crayon-drawing with violence, but she thinks that the Troitan general wouldn’t risk open warfare quite yet, though it’s certainly been hinted at that the five tribes are merging into one, and are looking to join forces with the Good Man. 

She carefully opens the wrapping and uses a knife to slide the box open, and is only somewhat surprised to see several rolls of parchment, a small glass bottle with a rubber stopper, and a small, folded sheet of parchment with Tommy’s name written on it in a childish hand. 

The return letter is nowhere near as long as she’d have thought, considering the amount of parchment in the box. The Great Letters are choppy and squat, the penstrokes heavy enough to dig into the surface of the parchment. 

The letter-writer dryly informs her that Thomas’s picture is indeed the most flattering drawing ever made of her by any son of New Canaan, and that she is not sure exactly why he knows the look of her so well but that he got most of it quite right. She asks Verise to please inform Thomas that in polite society he would not be likely to see so much of her stomach or bosom and that the vest would only be unlaced if she were on her way to undressing for bed. She writes that she has included a copy of the recipe her family uses to make green ink as well as a bottled sample for him to see for himself what it should look like at completion, and that she would be interested to see the results of his efforts. 

She writes that the man who’d delivered the first letter had been a lucky sailor- a twin, very rare and very well-respected for this reason among her peoples- and that he’d described Verise quite well, and what he knew of her little boy and his apparent ability to know things he doesn’t have reason to know yet. She writes that their sages are consulting the skies and each other on that particular matter. She writes that the sailor, though charming and handsome in his own right, was sent home to his people without tempting any Troitan men or women to court, though a lady of such a build and visage might do well enough among certain members of the tribe. 

She writes that her youngest child is a girl of nine, and that upon seeing the drawing of her mother the aforementioned child felt compelled to draw a picture of a horse eating grass, which has been included for Thomas’s perusal. She gives a short instruction on how to ensure another letter would come back to her, and a casual addition- if Verise’d like to write back, well, she’d be open to receiving another letter, perhaps. She regretfully informs Verise that a visit would not, at this time, be possible, and to extend her apologies to young Thomas.

And she signs the whole of the letter with a flourish,  _ A. Grissom _ . 

Verise examines the contents of the box for several minutes, though she leaves the drawing from General Grissom’s daughter for Tommy to discover himself. 

Verise’s reply- a little longer than the General’s letter, and containing a drawing Tommy made for her daughter of the tiny kitten he and wee Cuthbert and Jamie have found and are caring for- has likely not been received by the General herself by the time three men of Argenbie Hold dock their handsome ship nearby and make their way up to the castle. Verise is a little sad to see how shy Thomas is at first, and to see no dawning recognition in her boy’s eyes, but as soon as her twin brothers reach out for him in greeting he spots their tattoos- a crown of briar thorns around Tobias’s left wrist to keep demons at bay, knotted rigging around Tybalt’s right to help him stay his course- Tommy bounces delightedly before throwing himself into their embrace. 

Tommy chatters endlessly with her brothers about their tattoos, and shows them places on himself where his will one day go. They listen gravely to him, eyes light with love, and by the time they’ve been in Gilead a week- and, to be honest, have decided upon buying a home that they and Verise and Thomas can live in together- Tibby has already taught Thomas a mix of sailor’s handsigns and the signs he uses in place of speech, and Toby has taught him at least six wildly censored versions of the curses sailors use. 

And surely Tommy teaches this to his ka-tet, for whenever they’re together Tommy and Jamie are signing-  _ loveyou-good-loveyou-loveyou _ \- and whenever he gets a chance Bert strategically pretends to stub a toe and roars  _ fork  _ and rolls around groaning in pretend agony. The home her father and brothers make for them is smaller and not so fine as the old Whitman apartments, but Tommy and Jamie race one another through its rooms all the same, squeaking and chattering gleefully at one another.

Thomas falls often- bounces headfirst off walls and corners and doorjambs  _ far  _ too often- and Jamie never does. It’s Jamie who thinks to stop their play every time he does, and it’s Jamie who- after he’s had enough of gently patting and cooing at his poor Tommy’s little hurts- elects to take Tommy’s hand and lead him at a walk to different rooms when their play demands it. It’s odd, though- as sweet as he is, and as sharp and bright, Jamie rarely speaks to her brothers or her father, and latches onto Tommy’s side as though afraid of letting him go when they’re near- or afraid of being taken from him, for that matter. 

Verise wonders how much Jamie remembers, if it’s as much as Tommy remembers. She asks them once, some sleepy, normal afternoon, the boys curled up like mewling kittens in her lap.

Jamie looks up at her- an uncommonly beautiful boy, and all the more lovely for how adoringly he gazes at her son, for how happy they make each other- and his faint smile fades further still. 

“Only little bit,” he says, very quietly, curling his little arms around Tommy’s shoulders, pressing his chubby cheek into Tommy’s face. “Only just a little bit. Only my Tommy.”

“You remember your Tommy, lovey?” she presses, and Jamie, brave little boy that he is, looks like he’ll begin to cry. 

“Tommy went away,” he mumbles, and Tommy pats sleepily at Jamie’s neck.

“Di’n’t mean to,” her sweet son yawns, and there’s no more to pry out of the boys just then, for even Jamie is yawning and letting his eyes slowly close. 

Tommy is very nearly five when Abel, drawn-faced and sorrowful, asks her if she and her kinfolk might speak with him a moment. 

He asks her if Thomas has said anything about his son, if Thomas has mentioned at all what he thinks may happen to Wallace. Dear little Wally, she knows, has been feeling poorly, has already been excused from joining the gunslinger apprentices next year in Cort’s training, has spent much of the past few weeks in his bed. She is sad to tell him that he has not- and Abel only nods, for he’s realized for the past two years now that Tommy’s ka-tet has seemingly formed and crystallized, and that there are only five members in it. He tells her what he suspects- that Tommy might not have ever had a chance to meet Wally in whatever past life he experienced, that Tommy has no memory of him simply because they never had any time together. And he tells her what he knows, has known for some time: little Wallace Vannay, so brilliant and sweet and talented as he is, is dying. 

His hands shake around the delicate mug of tea Tybalt wordlessly hands over to him. 

“Wally can’t help but know,” he admits, trying very hard not to let his voice tremble as badly as his hands do. “Strong in the Touch, you know, incredibly so. I suspect little Alain may have guessed, as well- he might already have known, for he is ever a perceptive child- but he spends so much time with Wally, and they’ve spoken often of how loud everything is around your boy, how loud and bright-” 

He breaks off, has to put the mug down, has to bury his face in his hands. Verise holds her dear friend, horror and sorrow mingling through her at the thought of knowing with absolute certainty how and when a small child will die, of knowing that this child knows, that this child’s friends know. 

And she thinks unbidden, of Jamie’s tiny hands- one brown, one red- clutching onto Tommy, afraid to let him too long out of his sight, and of the tears glimmering in Jamie’s lovely eyes,  _ Tommy went away _ . 

And it is very terrible indeed to tell her little boy that his dear friend is dying, that he’s sick and doesn’t have very much time, that they will be preparing themselves for the end of his life. Tommy- for all that he knows or seems to know- is still just a tiny boy, himself. He struggles to understand what she’s telling him, and when it finally seems to make sense he cries and throws the first- and as she knows it only- tantrum he’s ever thrown.

_ No _ , he wails again and again, _ it’s not fair, it’s not fair and we tried to fix it and it shouldn’t be so. _ Even Jamie- who has always been far and away Tommy’s favorite person, after herself- is unable to calm him, and soon enough Tommy’s distress bleeds over into him, and he begins wailing, too. The boys only settle down to sniffles when it becomes clear that Tommy’s worn himself out, and he cries himself to sleep right there on the floor with his head in Jamie’s lap. 

Verise is determined that she do everything in her power to keep from adding this distress to Abel’s load, but he brings Wallace over often, and makes a point of gently sitting Thomas down and telling him that Wally is sick, that it’s not Tommy’s fault, that it’s no one’s fault at all. And Tommy nods slowly, and is careful to be very, very good for Abel, and to be just as gentle and sweet as he always is with Wally. She catches him crying to himself when he’s alone, surrounded by desperate scribbled drawings, and she can see that he has been trying to draw his dear friend’s face, and that he can’t satisfy himself with the results.

The very last time he sees Wally, he puts his head on Wally’s chest, as if listening to the beat of his heart, and Wally- ever so bright, ever so talented- gently strokes his cheek, pressing little kisses onto the crown of his head. 

“D’want you to go,” Tommy snuffles miserably, and Wally coos a sad agreement. “Please stay. I can- I can fix- I can-”

“Don’t be sad, my Tommy,” Wally murmurs. “I’m here, I’m waiting right here.” 

Tommy’s fifth birthday passes under a cloud, for he cannot rouse more than a faint, brief smile in the weeks after Wallace finally passes into the Clearing, and he does not want to leave Verise’s side at all- not to play, not to sleep, not to eat, and only barely to use the privy. Even there he wails at her unless she promises to stand outside the door and call in to him, to let him know that she’s still there. Even her father and brothers- who he adores, who adore him- are unacceptable substitutes, and it becomes clear that he’s afraid that, like Wallace, she might die or disappear. She tries to soothe him, and tries to explain that Wally had a rare sickness, and that it does not dwell in their family, but he still clings to her, still cries out for her when he can’t see her, still wakes up in a panic any night he doesn’t sleep in her bed.

It is not very unlike how he was when he was a baby of two, she thinks uneasily, for his words nearly dry up, reduced to a handful of names-  _ Mama _ , and the names of his ka-tet, though now he uses  _ Granddad  _ and  _ Uncle  _ and  _ sai _ , as well. And when he thinks she is sleeping he keeps an uneasy watch, curling his arms protectively around her, startling whenever a man speaks to her, even her own family. She finds a small knife- not quite sharp enough to hurt himself on, but a chilling find nonetheless- under the pillow in his crib, and when he allows himself to sleep- fitfully, and accompanied by unfamiliar and wordless squalling tantrums- he sleeps with one tiny hand under the pillow, grasping the knife’s handle, as if sure that he’ll be set upon in his sleep. He begs Verise often to stay with him, and she understands- she thinks she understands, for her sweet boy has never been so hard to know as he is now- that he is begging her not to do as Wallace did, that he is begging her to stay warm and living with him.

The letters from his friend the General and the General’s apparently artistically-inclined daughter cheer him up, but only a little, and never for long.

The solution to this time of deep sadness comes as a welcome surprise- Robert and Lavinia are called to settle the estate of one of Vinnie’s sisters, in the low mountains that spring up on the southernmost edge of the Barony of Mejis, very near the edge of the Clean Sea. It is a journey of at least a month even with the use of the (sadly, beginning to fall into disuse) railway line, and Tiffany and Jamie and Cuthbert decide to stay with Verise and her family while the Allgood apartments are vacant. 

Tommy is a little cheered by the prospect, and even manages to smile and play with his friends. He gains back a little of his independence from Verise, and the screaming tantrums slow to a halt, and if she still wakes up in the night to a weeping child crawling into her bed, well, that is something that she can help with, at least. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Verise and the General- who prefers to be addressed either by her family name or by her title, which Verise can relate to- have been corresponding for nearly two years before she gets a shorter letter than usual. 

The five tribes, Grissom writes, are at an impasse. Some have suffered more terribly than others at the hands of the Affiliation, and some have committed crimes against the Affiliated Baronies that would be punishable by brutal execution among most peoples. Some seek nothing but peace, and some seek nothing but retribution, and among the elders and leaders there is a growing rift, for some think that only the harrier known as John Farson can provide these things, and some are willing to give the Affiliation one final chance at a treaty. 

And then, incredibly casually, there is a question, as if it was an afterthought instead of the main purpose of her note: the General, it seems, is coming to Gilead, and would like to establish an ambassadorship, and would she perhaps be interested in meeting for a meal and to let wee Tommy and Siobhan- who by now is almost eleven- meet one another? 

“Say, Tommy-dear, would you like to say hello to your friends the General and Siobhan, then?” Verise calls, and Tommy calls back from his room, sounding vaguely bemused.

“Am already, Mama!” 

“What do you mean by-” Verise starts, then stops this ridiculous business of shouting room to room, and walks into his little bedroom. His window is open, and there is a grinning, tow-headed child half-inside, wearing a smart little traveling outfit that is  _ quite  _ dirty and grimy from her climb up to the second-floor nursery.

“Oi, you must be Tommy’s Mummy,” she says brightly, and Tommy beams at her.

“It’s Siobhan,” he says proudly.

“I see it’s Siobhan,” Verise agrees, helping the girl inside. “I take it your mother is nearby, Miss Grissom?”

“She wanted to know if you got her letter,” Siobhan says proudly, giving Tommy’s hair a delighted pat. 

“Ah, so she sent you, did she?” Verise asks, and Siobhan pauses, sensing a trap. 

“Well- she would have,” she says slowly, “if she’d known it was so easy to climb over the fence and up the wall, or that Tommy’d let me in. We’re meant to be at the big hall.”

“It seems we should return you to your Mummy immediately, then, for she’ll think you lost,” Verise sighs, and both the children let out entreating whines.

“Oh, Mama, just to play a little bit? See, I made some green,” Tommy says pleadingly, pointing to the spot on the wall and the rug and the stained floorboards underneath where his  _ very  _ green ink somehow exploded from a dropped bowl of the mixture last week. 

“It’s good, a very good green, aye,” Siobhan says encouragingly, and Verise shakes her head. 

“No, dear, your Mummy is not likely to let you play here again if we don’t make sure she knows you’re safe,” Verise points out, and the two of them huff dramatically.

Verise’s father agrees to chaperone the three of them- having not had a chance to meet the General before, as the twins had, he is still quite curious about the Troitan who seems to have captured his family’s fancy. The General is a short woman- very short, an entire foot shorter than Verise is at the very least, for she barely comes to Verise’s shoulder and is wearing great big boots, besides- and has a great braided mane of hair a darker shade than Siobhan’s, and she is intensely handsome, with vinelike green and blue tattoos peeking out around and from under the rolled sleeves and rounded collar of her loose shirt. Verise finds it’s quite hard to take her eyes away, and when the General- who has, after Verise’s second letter, always addressed her as Captain- notices this, she grins, flashing a mouth full of teeth that have been filed to points. 

“Meant for ye’d to have time to write me ‘fore you knew I was here,” the General comments, winking. “Hadn’t planned for yon gremlin’s mischief, and by rights I ought have, for who taught her so?”

“General-sai,” Tommy says, entranced, and when she crouches down to meet him at his level he reaches over for her- Verise thinks it will be for a hug, and she suspects the General might also, for her arms start to move on instinct- and then he gently pats her cheeks, eyes round as plates. “Is paint, then? Is it paint when- when blue?”

“Aye, blue paint, y’didn’t think I’d tattoo it all over blue, did you?” she challenges gently, and Tommy’s eyes light up.

“You could, you could,” he says enthusiastically, and she shakes her head firmly at him, his chubby little hands still cradling her face.

“Nay, would take too long, and wouldn’t be the right shade, Tom,” she says gravely, and he nods slowly, drinking in the sight of her. “Am I about what you thought I’d be, wee one?”

“Y’s,” he says shyly, turning pink all over. “Am sorry I was a bad Tommy. I love you.”

“Oh, you weren’t any such thing, were you, Tom?” she asks roughly, and he throws his arms around her neck. She gives his back a pat, before standing- and taking him with her, for as small as she is she must be made of nothing but steel-threaded muscle. General Grissom catches Verise staring and winks again. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you finally,” Verise’s father says solemnly, and then he elbows Verise lightly. “Heard quite a bit about you before today, aye! This one’d like to talk about nothing else!”

“Now, Dad!” Verise says softly, dismayed, and is that a teasing wicked gleam in the General’s eye at that? Verise finds she hopes that there is. “Why, and this fine General has come all this way just to be spoken to so, then?”

“She could always come for dinner, if you’d but invite the lass,” Dad huffs, before reaching over for Tommy. “Come, pass my little namesake back to me, General Grissom, and you and Veri here might work out the details of a future engagement, perhaps.”

Tommy almost goes to him, then freezes, grasping the General by the face again. “Wait-” he implores, and he pulls himself close to her, whispering into her ear. The General hums a little in agreement, before passing him over to his grandfather. 

“Fret not, Wee Tom,” she says seriously, and bares her teeth in a threatening grin. “Am quite a dangerous lady myself, am I not?” She waves Siobhan over, who seems to have had time to change into a set of clean clothes. “Come on, then, go on with them two and meet some of the kiddies you’ve been dyin’ t’meet.”

Almost as an aside, she tells Verise as Dad and the two children are leaving- probably, she thinks, to go meet Alain and Claire and Melisende, since Alain’s sisters are the same age as Siobhan- that Siobhan, being the youngest of a big family, has always wanted a little brother of her own, and has been very keen on meeting Tommy because of it. Verise nods- she knows that the General has adopted eight others, but that Siobhan is of her blood, and that there was another child, before, and that this earlier girlchild is no longer living. 

“What did Tommy say to you that was so urgent, just then?” Verise asks softly, and the General’s eyes light on her face, very clear and heavy with thought. Tommy has not done this often- so far as she knows, that time with Hax was the last, and though the cook has kept a very friendly relationship with her and with Tommy himself, he still does not know that Tommy, sometimes, knows things he has no business yet knowing.  


“Said not t’let the wolf get you,” she says, her teeth flashing in the midday light. “Said he’d eat you up if he got you, and you’d go away again.”

Verise presses a hand to her mouth, and the General must see something in her face, for she steers her over to a simple, padded chair and bids her to sit. 

“Who’s the wolf, Captain?” the General asks softly, and Verise is sickened and frightened, yes, but she thinks above everything else she’s deeply, incandescently furious.

“I think,” she says, her voice straining, “that this… word refers to Tommy’s father.” 

The General’s eyes narrow. She knows that Colton does not live with Verise and Tommy, of course, and that Tommy knows things, as if they’d happened to him before. 

“And ye’d tell me of this, then?” the General asks, and Verise smiles faintly, bitterly.

“I’d tell you that the thing in Tommy that knew you and knew to reach for you has been terrified of his father ever since something in him woke up and knew the trajectory of his life,” she says, and the General nods, eyes glittering. Verise pauses, then, knowing that this really does take a step towards treason, “He’s terrified of his own father, but he- he is  _ murderous  _ toward Jamie’s father.”

“Jamie’s the little sweetheart he’s so fond of?” the General confirms- doubtless having seen the drawings Tommy’s sent Siobhan over the last couple of years. Verise nods, looking pointedly away.

“Jamie’s father is the highest-trained doctor in Gilead, as it happens, and is of noble birth. And ever since Tommy and the boys of his ka-tet began… whatever it is that’s awakened such knowledge in them, they’ve been… something of a danger to him, aye.” Verise glances at the General again. “Tiffany and Jamie have lived with the Allgoods, outside of that man’s home, ever since.”

There is no reading the expression on the General’s face, but after a moment a small, thoroughly-calloused hand takes her own, though her hand indeed dwarfs the General’s. 

“T’will be such a shame, the sort of accidents that may befall such men,” the General comments, giving Verise’s hand a squeeze, shooting her a small and private smile. For the first time in a long time- for the first time in near ten years, for the first time since she stole a kiss from Gabby on the moonlit beach the night before she left to become the child-queen of Gilead, in fact- something in Verise’s heart breaks free and sings. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

They are both nine- no longer the same height, alas, no longer the same size- though Thomas, being a great many months older than Jamie, will soon be ten. Alain is already ten, himself, but Alain is not here, no, nor Roland or Cuthbert, and the girls- Melisende and Claire and Siobhan and Aileen- have all gone off to do whatever mysterious play girls get up to when the boys aren’t nearby. Thomas would like to know, one day, what they do-

-ah, but this is better, he thinks happily. He and Jamie are stretched out in Jamie’s room, and the cat they’ve been caring for since it was just a teeny thing is in the room with them, batting lazily at the little toy that Jamie flicks here and there for her. Thomas has a ream of fresh parchment, and pencils, and a clever ink-filled pen that Granddad gave him last summer, and he has many, many drawings now of Jamie and Catgirl playing. It is a perfect and peaceful Sanday, a perfect day of doing nothing much and being happy to do so. 

“ _ Giaouuu _ ,” Catgirl says suddenly, and races away to the space under Jamie’s bed. Jamie and Thomas wait, but when it seems she won’t come back out Jamie crawls over, sitting flush against Thomas’s side to look at his drawings. 

“Catgirl a very mysterious girl,” Thomas says mildly, and Jamie nods against him, putting his arm protectively around Thomas’s front. “Should like to know what she’s thinking. Do you suppose there’s a way to learn what cats think?”

“Mm,” Jamie says, his face pressing into Thomas’s shoulder.

“Could perhaps do an experiment, since we raised Catgirl and all, so she might have the knowing of human speech, aye?” Thomas puts a hand over Jamie’s, stroking it gently. “Wonder what she’s thinking of. I don’t suppose she’s hungry, for we’ve given her a good breakfast, aye, and she’s used the, the kitty-privy that Uncle made, so I think, not that. Could just be tired of playing, for she does sometimes, you know, she sometimes tires of playing-”

“Tommy,” Jamie murmurs, and Thomas glances down at him, grinning. “My Tommy.”

“Aye, just so,” Thomas agrees. Jamie hums, clings a little closer. Jamie has tried, before, to tell Thomas what happened- Thomas knows he died, aye, and knows that his friends, miraculously, did not, and that Jamie saw what happened to him, and that it hurt his Jamie so. Already Thomas has a hard time fitting the murky memory-image of an angry, bleeding General Grissom over the person he knows now as Siobhan’s Mummy-sai, though Roland and Bert and Alain seem a little more leery of her still- and Jamie, of course, seems to not have quite forgiven her yet for whatever it was that happened. 

But the actual details of what he remembers seeing, Jamie can’t say, for it hurts him, so it does. Thomas knows only that Jamie can’t bear the thought of it happening again.

Thomas pats gently at the knuckles of Jamie’s hand. It was different this time- the Doctor has not lived with Jamie since they were only two, and has had to retire due to some illness of the blood that he could not cure in himself. And Colton Whitman suffered some kind of fall, and though he is still a gunslinger by right and by the skill of his hand, he stays in the Whitman apartments most days, for the fall such as he had resulted in the loss of his right foot, and the false foot he may use for walking hurts him terribly, it seems. There is a new doctor, and Jamie’s Mummy is very happy and smiles at them often, and Mama never left when Thomas was five. Aileen lives here again, and Siobhan- who Thomas recalls, but only very vaguely- is very good friends with Claire and Melisende, and takes good care of Thomas when their mothers are busy. And Uncle Toby and Uncle Tibby and dear old Granddad are new, and good, and Thomas loves them very dearly. 

He sets his drawings aside so that he might curl his Jamie closer, pressing his face into Jamie’s lovely hair. The scar on his arm from his failed falconry lesson is still there- is only perhaps a year and a half or two years old- but when he got it stitched neatly up this time, it was Siobhan’s brother Finn- a very nice big brother, aye, and very good at medicine-work- who stitched it, and who gently soothed it and put a cooling lotion to numb it, and gave Thomas a candied fig-slice as a treat for being so good during. Jamie’s tiny, perfect hand traces the scar now with fingers light as a tickling wind, soft as powder-fine sand on a warm and sunny morning. Then his fingers move, dipping into the curve of an anchor, outlining the shape of Thomas’s first tattoo, though he knows he’s still more than two years away from placing it there. 

He wonders idly if he’ll do it the same way, or if he’ll convince his Uncle to help him make the anchor straight and true. He wonders if he’s done enough, this time, to let it be the last time. 

“Tommy,” Jamie murmurs, and like a soft, perfect hand dipped into the warm waters of his brain, the familiar and comfortable feeling of Jamie’s  _ khef  _ touching and joining his own,  _ alright, my Tommy? _

“Alright,” Thomas says softly, and when he looks Jamie is looking at him, eyes soft. Thomas takes his hand, gives it a small squeeze, sends wordless love and trust and quietness. He tries and succeeds at giving Jamie a smile before he speaks again. “Alain said Hax hasn’t yet done anything, you know. Could be it shall be better this time.”

“Yes,” Jamie says cautiously. They sit together in silence until Catgirl pokes her handsome little nose out from under the bed, before daintily stepping over and making herself known to them. Thomas offers her his open palm, and she sniffs it a few times before allowing him to give her a pat. 

“Suppose I had ought to go home,” Thomas sighs, pressing his face into the side of Jamie’s neck for a moment. “Siobhan and her Mummy are eating with me and Mama and Granddad.”

“Siobhan and her Mum go to your house a lot,” Jamie says sulkily, and Thomas gives his shoulder a poke. “Should stay with me. They go to your house  _ all the time _ , Tommy.”

“Well,” Thomas says, after a moment’s thought. “True enough, but you and I will have a house that’s just us and no one else when we’re grown. Unless you want then to have Siobhan and her Mummy come for dinner when we’ve our own house and all, Jay?”

“ _ No _ ,” Jamie says firmly, wrinkling his nose. “Only Tommy.” He shoots Thomas an imploring look, and Thomas giggles helplessly at it.

“Ah, no, you’re right, Jamie, for I don’t want anybody else either, just Jamie and Tommy, aye,” he says happily, giving Jamie’s lovely face a pat. “Shall be with you all day tomorrow and all week, too, though, won’t I?”

“That’s class,” Jamie grumbles, clinging still to Thomas’s shirt. “Not the same. Want you to stay.”

Thomas hesitates- almost agrees, almost tells him that he’s right, that he wants every moment he can have with Jamie this time- but he wants his mother, too, he wants to spend as many meals with her as he can, for he knows not how or why she’s still with him, only that she’s never stayed so long before. 

Thomas’s lip trembles, and he looks away, for he knows big boys and certainly apprentice gunslingers aren’t meant to be crying for no true reason. “I want my Mama, is all, Jay.”

Jamie’s hand is soft and brief on his cheek; the warm, still feeling of his  _ khef  _ is longer and more soothing. “Alright, Tommy, only- only don’t go away. Don’t go away-”  _ -like last time _ , he doesn’t say,  _ don’t leave me the way you did last time _ .

“Shall go straight home, and stay proper in bed and not sneak out with Siobhan to play dragons,” Thomas says dutifully, although it can be very tempting indeed to sneak out to play dragons, usually because Siobhan can also convince Claire and Alain to come too. “And be with you tomorrow, aye, in Master Vannay’s classroom, very early together.” 

Jamie looks very thunderous and displeased still, but he’s only nine, and Thomas is very nearly ten already. He gives Jamie a swift kiss, in the middle of his brow, and chases after Catgirl to give her a kiss goodbye as well before he puts his drawings and his pen and pencils into his bag. 

Thomas tells Tiffany-sai and Vinnie-sai goodbye as well- Cuthbert’s father is out, as well as Bert himself, for they went out together to the Johnses- and for a moment he is afraid, but only for a moment, for he’s had his whole long life to become used to walking the hallways and corridors of Gilead alone again. 

He’s not quite halfway home before he glances down a halfway- not too familiar or unfamiliar, he thinks- and sees something very interesting, aye. It looks like a bubble, perhaps, although on second glance it seems almost to be a bowl- clear glass, mounted on the wall, a little above his eye-level. Thomas glances around- surely, he reasons, it hurts no one at all to take just a tiny peek, and he can ask Master Vannay about it tomorrow, for Vannay knows ever so much about just near every subject he can imagine. 

Thomas reaches for the glass, touching it gently. There looks to be small things inside it, like the small things that live inside electric lights, but they are cold and dark and silent. He touches it again, wondering, and a soft, cheerful voice farther down the hall calls out to him. 

“A handsome pretty, is it not? There used to be more of them-” 

Thomas turns, startled, and there is a man there who must have just come, yes, from the other end of the hallway. What lies that way, Thomas knows not, for he thinks he rarely if ever has come this way. The man points at the wall, and yes, Thomas can see- the places in the masonry that are different, the places where the bowls had been mounted before. One is boarded over, leaving a flat circle, and the other looks to have had a wall-sconce placed in it. The light of the torch is dim- dimmer than Thomas would have thought- sort of thin, he thinks, sort of greasy, like-

“-from the days of Arthur Eld, you know, when the ways and the technologies of the Old People were still known,” the man continues, and Thomas blinks at him, then at the funny bowl. “Generally inert nowadays, of course- the world has moved on, despite all the best efforts of mice and men.”

“Oh?” Thomas asks, touching it again. It reminds him of something, though he’s not sure what. “Pretty. Why only here, though?”

“Why, these used to be part of the castle defenses, doncha know,” the man says, laughing. Thomas rubs his face, just under his eyes- there’s an odd, unpleasant spice to the smoke of the torches here, as if they’d been dipped in some strange oil, perhaps. The smell of it crawls up into his head with an itch, aye, a familiar itch, though he’s not sure why he’d say so. “You might be able to find the wiring for them in the walls all over the castle, but here, specifically, they had extra protections, you see. The room at the end of this hallway was used for- oh, lots of things. Military planning, a war room, the plotting of assassinations and spywork, the wrongful overthrowing of Gilead’s neighbors… you know, all that good stuff they leave out of the history books. It’s periodically used as an office nowadays, or private quarters for learned men and court magicians, that sort of thing.”

That doesn’t sound very nice, Thomas thinks, cupping his hand against the cool glass again, pressing his palm against it. But then, he does know that things are often less nice and more terrible than he’d have liked them to be. “What was this  _ for _ , though, sai?”

“I’ll show you,” the man says, snapping his fingers- and, amazingly, something inside the bowl moves, spinning to life, giving off tiny sparks of brightness as Thomas draws his hand back. “When they were all working, they made a fucking impressive mind-trap, you know. Now, well… just the one works and that only a little bit, really.”

Thomas thinks it’s- it’s certainly very pretty, anyone would say so, but it reminds him of- of pinkness, of the light inside a glass ball, aye, the Pinky-ball that hurt his Roland so, the last time it was here- and he takes a step back, glancing fearfully around. 

“I don’t need to see it anymore, sai, I’ve-” he starts, then stops with a tiny, fretsome sound, for the man is gone, aye. Was he ever there? The thin, weak light of the torches is the same as it was before he saw the man, and the spice of the torch-smoke-

Thomas gets a very bad feeling, all at once. The smoke is familiar, aye, it’s the smell of death, it’s the smell of many deaths. He turns around, turns all the way around, only he can’t see the place he came in from, only a dark hallway stretching out in both directions, and in front of him a door, a very big door. It’s curiously carved- not a nice-looking door, for it appears to be all arms and hands, grasping at something that bobs to the surface of the blood-dark wood.

Thomas lets out a small sound, hugging his arms to his chest. The laugh of the man in the hallway doesn’t sound so very far, no. It sounds like a close purr, though he can’t see the man doing the laughing. 

“You know, I was angry with you, buckaroo, I was  _ incredibly  _ pissed off, you have no idea,” the Man says, and Thomas lets out a soft, sobbing wail. “Oh, stop that, you know it’s not going to do any good. Anyway, where was I- oh, yes. So, you know, you really dicked me over last time, and even though it didn’t end up inconveniencing me in the slightest, it really chapped my ass, you know?”

“No,” Thomas whimpers, putting his face in his hands. “No, no, I want Jamie, I want my Mama, no, no-”

“Well, you’ll just have to trust me on that, then,” the Man says smoothly. “But you know what, Tommy-boy? I’ve been thinking about what you said. I’ve been thinking long and hard.”

“Alain come, Alain-please-come,” Thomas prays softly, eyes darting wildly as he tries to spy where the Man might be, where the open way back to light and life is. “Alain please, please Alain-”

“And what exactly do you think he’s going to do if he does, the Truffle Shuffle?” the Man asks, and Thomas doesn’t know what this means, no, he doesn’t know what these words mean, but he wants Alain, he wants Alain to hear him, he doesn’t want to be alone, it’s frightening when he’s alone.

A hand falls onto his head, stroking his hair back, and it is a  _ cold  _ hand, cold as a corpse on a winter’s night, cold as a snowbank, and Thomas’s plea to Alain breaks off into a soft, reedy moan. 

“You were right, unbelievably,” the Man says softly. He swims into focus now- it’s not light enough to see him well, and he doesn’t have the look that Thomas knows him by, the face isn’t the blue-face or the Friar-face or the Marten-face, but even in this dim light and through his blurring, tearful vision Thomas knows him, knows his face very well, knows it better, in all honesty, than he knows his father’s. “To reach the Tower- to reach the top- I can’t do it, not alone. I need a gunslinger, yes. I need a  _ friend _ .”

A cold-cold-cold hand, stroking down Thomas’s cheek, and Thomas is not so big or grown, it seems, for he cries out in a panic, weeping at the feel of it. He wants away, he wants his Mama, he wants away from here, from this Man. 

“So here’s what I’ll do. We’ll leave all this bullshit behind- you never get to enjoy it anyway, oh lost and wandering one- and you’ll be my little buddy, you and I will just have to learn to get along, and hey, I’ll take better care of you than anybody else ever has, I’ll let you live to see the Tower, how’s that sound? And-”

“Oi, who’s down there?” a voice calls- a good voice, Thomas thinks, though his brains feel all a-scramble and he isn’t sure who it is that calls out. The Man clamps a hand over Thomas’s mouth before he can scream, puts a finger to his own lips, as if it’s a joke, almost as if they’re friends. 

“Hey!” the voice- oh, it is a  _ lady _ , Thomas knows, and he tries to scream against the press of the Man’s hand anyway, and the sound is flat against his own ears. “Identify yerself!”

“Why, it’s only me, sai, only old Richard here-” the Man starts, in a wheedling tone, and Thomas sees him look off to one side, sees the smug expression on his face change-

-and there is a tinkle-sound of glass, as something on the wall, aye, something high and to one side and made of clear glass breaks, and the walls shiver, the light shivers, even the Man’s face shivers-

-and there is a thump and a crunch, up on the same spot, and the hallway isn’t so dark or scary as it was a moment ago, and the door of many arms and hands is gone, now, and the Man looks both familiar and not. The bowl-thing on the wall is quite broken, and the shadow is familiar, aye, of the person who’d done the breaking.

“There’s laws in my lands,” General-sai says mildly, lowering her heavy ironwood club. “Aye, very specific laws they are, concernin’ the treatment of those caught to be placin’ hands on children.”

Thomas sobs against the Man’s palm, and the Man begins to say something, but Siobhan’s Mummy doesn’t seem interested in hearing it. She’s a fast lady- aye, warrior-fast, she’s a sniper, Thomas knows this, he surely does- and she is much closer than Thomas expects, and the heavy, rounded end of her club whistles once through the air before it lands solidly in the top of the Man’s forehead. General-sai pulls the club back, watching as the Man staggers drunkenly back, the expression on her face flat and unmoved as he holds his hands up in a plea, as the club whistles through the air again and breaks one of his hands with the snapping of many small bones, aye, Thomas knows the sound of it, knows it very well-

-he puts his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes shut, for if he lets himself remember Jericho Hill he will weep in earnest, if he lets himself remember dying he might shriek and shiver and be quite an embarrassment to his family, aye-

-there is another crunching thud, and the sound of a weight falling to the stone floor, and General-sai’s voice, firm and the same, aye, the voice he knows very well.

“Thomas? Have ye been hurt anywhere, lad?” she asks, and Thomas throws himself at her without thinking, wrapping his arms ‘round her waist and burying his face against her front. He is sure he is saying something, but she shushes him softly, patting his hair and shoulders and neck. “Let’s hurry on back home-way, then, aye?”

And he is nine- aye, nine-near-ten, far too big and too old for such things- but when she lifts him up into her small arms to carry him home, he finds he doesn’t mind. Siobhan’s Mummy is very strong and strong, after all, and when he makes a soft noise she shushes him again, tells him that she doesn’t want him to fall, and he’s been through much today, is very prone to falling on a day like this. 

Thomas’s mind is a-clamor, and it takes a few moments before he recognizes the feel of Alain’s worry for him, the honey-curl of Alain’s  _ khef  _ against the back of his mind, lovely and good Alain who has only ever been good to him. 

_ I’m safe now _ , Thomas thinks, curling himself closer into General-sai’s neck, sending wordless love-safety-relief to his ka-mate.  _ I’m safe now. _

And Thomas may only be a boy of nine now, but he thinks maybe this time he’s right about this. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Thomas is already fifteen before he recognizes the restlessness in Roland for what it is. 

Unfortunately, he realizes it in the middle of a class, Cort’s broad body throwing deepening shadows across the grassy field, and Thomas is a full fifteen yards away from Roland when the awful knowledge of what Roland’s planning hits him. 

For there is no Marten here now- or, well, if he is, he is hidden, has not appeared Martenfaced, has not approached Roland’s lady mother or made her turn her heart from his father, has not hurt or tried to hurt Thomas since that long-ago time when he was very small still and his dear good friend the General saved him- and therefore Thomas had thought Roland would be safe and stay safe, aye, a daft old Tommy it seems. For dear old stupid stubborn Roland has been training himself even more intently as of late. Sai Deschain does not seem like he understands or fully accepts the idea that Roland’s ka-tet knows things, but he accepted the lie Master Vannay and Cort told him, that the Touch that had dwelt in Wally had shined through the lens Thomas makes of such things, that it had made the five of them all a little stronger, a little wiser, a little more magic. And Sai Deschain does understand and like the idea of his serious, talented son working even harder to be the best gunslinger of their ka-tel, that he does.

Thomas hates that poor dear Wally is used this way, even though it was Master Vannay’s idea- he hates that Wallace isn’t here, he hates that he failed, somehow, to save him, he hates that he can’t think of anything he could have done differently, because he knows now what he couldn’t understand ten years ago, aye. Wallace didn’t die of violence, didn’t die of Thomas’s neglect at all, but because something in his brain stopped, because something inside his skull couldn’t do its proper job. Thomas doesn’t know if he should have found some way to save Wally, and frets often that he should have, that he needed to save his friend first, that this won’t be the last time at all, that he’ll be trapped still, until he can find a way to fix this, too. 

And now Roland is acting quite a fool, aye, and making sure to follow the path his past self walked, and is quite obviously preparing himself to challenge Cort this year, against all wisdom or necessity. Roland’s stupid lovely face is turned to the sky, quite possibly on purpose to avoid making eye-contact with Thomas, who is furiously waving at him. Thomas scowls, dipping his hands down and wrenching off his boot before he can think of anything else-

“Tommy, no,” Alain says sharply from one side, and Thomas startles, his foot landing in the grass, the sock growing damp. Alain doesn’t want Roland to challenge Cort either, no, but he also does  _ not  _ like the sudden shape of Thomas’s thoughts. “Don’t do that-”

“What devil moves your tongues so?” Cort bellows, stomping over to them. Alain glances helplessly at Thomas, who is still standing with a boot in one hand. “What exactly are you doing, Thomas?”

“I-” Thomas hesitates. He knows he is supposed to be preparing to work on his target-practice, and that he is meant to partner with Alain for this, aye, but he knows that is not what Cort is asking. “I am fixing myself to throw my boot, sai.”

“This seems apparent, Thomas. Why are you fixing to throw your boot, then?” Cort asks, sounding vaguely amused.

“Well, Roland won’t look at me and he must listen, sai,” Thomas says slowly, and Cort looks up at the sky for several seconds. Thomas chances a peek up there as well, but there doesn’t seem to be anything interesting happening at all. Finally Cort sighs down at him. 

“Is this a matter of life and death, Thomas?” he asks, and Thomas winces, thinking of David.

“Yes,” he says, and Cort nods. 

“And where exactly were you fixing to throw this boot, to gather Roland’s attention so?” he asks, and Thomas exchanges a glance with Alain, who will know if he tries to fib, aye.

“Was aimin’ for his head, sai,” Thomas mumbles, and Cort nods slowly, as though this is something he already knew. 

“You should be able to aim for his left elbow,” he says firmly. “From this distance, a boot will not behave as a dart or a ball would, as I think thee knows. The force of even a strong throw won’t be much, but even a gentle toss with the hard edge of a bootheel can cause serious damage to a gunslinger’s eyesight. It will leave a mighty bruise on your ka-mate but won’t do irreparable harm if it’s his elbow you hit.”

“Aye, Cort,” Thomas sighs, nodding. “Thankee, Cort.”

“And if you hit anything but his elbow, you’re to receive a whipping yourself,” Cort adds, and Thomas blinks up at him. “Grimace not at me from behind, Alain Johns, or you’ll be next in line.”

“Yes, sai,” Alain says promptly, though he gives Thomas a small frown regardless. 

“You don’t mind if I throw my boot to get Ro’s attention, then?” Thomas confirms shyly, and Cort sighs again, waving one meaty hand and turning away.

“I’ll allow it, Thomas.” 

“Thankee, Cort,” Thomas says gravely, before chucking his boot. His aim is true; it bounces off Roland’s elbow, earning a startled squawk and a sudden glare.

“Oi, c’mere!” Thomas shouts at him, and after a short, irritated glance at Jamie- who Roland had been partnered with, and who gives Roland a small shrug now- his lovely, fey, idiot dinh trots over, holding Thomas’s boot in one hand.

“Threw your boot at me, Thomas!” Roland says sternly, and Thomas holds his hand out until Roland hands it back over. “What was  _ that  _ for?”

“I think you know!” Thomas says hotly. “I think you know very well, aye! All this time- all the work of coming back- and you’re set to do the same fool things again an’ again-”

“Don’t quarrel so, you two, it’s-” Alain says, but Roland draws himself up, the pale blue of his eyes flashing. 

“Do you forget, then? You didn’t have to do what  _ we  _ had to do, Tommy, you were  _ gone _ ,” he hisses. “You thought it was better to go away and leave us, because you didn’t think it was  _ right  _ yet-”

“It wasn’t! It wasn’t, for you’re here, we’re all here again-” Thomas says, and he does believe he might be shouting.

“Please, Roland, Tommy-” Alain hisses urgently, and neither of them pays him any mind.

“It  _ could  _ have been right! It could have been  _ all  _ of us together,” Roland argues, eyes round in the flushing redness of his face. “But it wasn’t, so now we’re here, because  _ you  _ left us then-”

“It’s not my  _ fault _ ,” Thomas snaps at him, and Roland scowls. 

“-and this time it  _ will  _ be right, Tommy, for I mean to save her, I have what I need to save her this time, and it will be so,” Roland says, squaring his shoulders. “It will be different this time, and I am doing this, and you can’t stop me-”

“Can I not, then?” Thomas says, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, for he hates to be upset and shouting at his friends, hates to be angry at them. “Can I  _ not  _ stop you from such a stupid-headed-”

Roland grabs the front of his shirt, pulling him close. “Not on your life. You don’t know. You don’t remember them, you never  _ met  _ them, and you never had to bury them, and  _ I’m not doing that again _ .”

“Let go,” Thomas says, glaring- aye, glaring down, for Roland hasn’t hit his growth yet, and is still a handful of inches shorter than he. “Let me go, lovey, for I am not happy to be held so, I am  _ not _ .”

Roland lets him go. Thomas knows there are times when he would not have, aye, many times, and he wishes that he were in one of those times now, for he’d sorely like to take a swing at his dinh just now, and those Rolands may have deserved it, and this one does not. The realization does not comfort him, nor does the unsettling realization that he doesn’t know, not really, whether all Rolands are the same Roland, or if they’re all different, and if they are, why? And what is Thomas, who and what and how many of him are there-

“Tommy?” Alain asks, coming closer. Thomas looks at the darkling and fey Roland, looks at his own hands clutching Roland’s wrists, though he is having a devil of a time remembering how they got there. He lets go of Roland, his hands stiff and unfamiliar-feeling.

Thomas glances over at Alain- beautiful and wonderful Alain, golden-warm and honey-bright and sweeter than anything- and shuts his eyes, for he can feel himself wander, and he doesn’t want to, no, he wants to settle this, he wants- he wants-

“I won’t do it yet, Tommy,” Roland says gently, taking his hands in his own, running his thumbs over Thomas’s knuckles. “I won’t do it without warning. Not ready yet. I know that. But I will be, Tommy.” 

“I want-” Thomas hears himself mumble, then shakes his head with an unhappy shiver. “Am going to the barracks. I don’t feel well. Please present my apologies to Cort, dear.” 

“Sure, Tommy,” Roland says, relaxing. Thomas feels Alain- for a moment he is confused, for he isn’t sure if he feels the weight of Alain’s hand or the touch of his mind, and he has time to realize that it is both, after all, warm and good Alain, looking after him, looking into him, finding a space to be inside of him even times like these, when Thomas feels like he can’t possibly fit inside his own head. 

“I’ll come look in on you, alright, Tommy?” Alain asks, and Thomas nods jerkily before turning and putting his head down, willing himself to go directly to the barracks. 

He doesn’t know what he is feeling. Thomas hopes that a small rest will help, perhaps, with this feeling of not-knowing, or at least that he will wake up feeling and thinking something manageable and identifiable, perhaps. Thomas toys also with the thought of tramping all the way to his house and asking his mother or uncles or Granddad for advice, or of going to the ambassador’s quarters where Siobhan and her Mummy live and seeing if that makes him feel better, or settled. 

But he goes to the barracks instead, and he shuts himself in the small, impersonal room, and drags a hand down his face when he realizes that he’s come all this way with one boot on and the other in his hand. 

“A silly, daft old Tommy,” he mutters to himself, dropping his boot to the floor and toeing the other one off before flopping bodily into his narrow bed. His sock is very damp, and he doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t want to go to all the effort of taking off his socks. He compromises, wriggling his foot until it’s free of the offending sock, and kicks it lightly off the edge of the cot. He presses his face into his pillow and wills himself to go to sleep; it’s not as easy as it is to make himself wander, though, and it’s not much of a nap before there’s a knock on the door- familiar, good echoes on the other side, like slipping into comfortable, tailored, perfectly-worn clothes, like starlight on the surface of steaming tea, yes- and then, tentatively, Alain’s voice. 

“Alright, Tommy?” he asks through the door. 

“We’re coming in to see you, old boy,” Bert says merrily, and Thomas does not see any point in trying to nap further, and perhaps it will do him some good to speak to them.

They come in; Bert gives his bare ankle a light tap before sitting next to his side, and Alain comes and sits on his other side, patting the middle of his back. Thomas shivers, glad that they’re here, and confused, and irritated at himself for his confusion. 

“You left class in a bit of a state,” Bert says gently. 

“Mmh,” Thomas grunts into his pillow.

“You’re all worked up, you know,” Alain says, also gently.

“Mmh,” Thomas repeats. He does know. 

“Well, tell us what ails you, Tommy-oh,” Cuthbert prompts, and Thomas groans and grumbles, rolling awkwardly over so that he’s on his back between them. “Alright?”

“Alright,” Thomas echoes back, and when Alain puts his hand down on him again, resting it on the middle of his chest, he grasps it in both hands, holding the solid warmth of it to try to focus on it, on its realness, on its weight. Still, it is a few minutes more before he can speak. “Roland.”

“Yes, our dear and fearless dinh, old long and tall and-” Bert trails off, his face doing something very queer as if he is tasting the words themselves. 

“Fighting Cort at fourteen was  _ that man’s  _ plan,” Thomas says unhappily. “And using David was cruel, and a mistake. I don’t want to… to see it all again, and have to, again, I- I’m so tired, and he doesn’t- he’s just-”

Alain’s other hand cups the tops of Thomas’s hands, and Bert puts a hand on his face, and it helps, a little, with the crushing feeling of being lost and unknown and unknowable that crests over Thomas’s head, like the crashing of a wave he’s seen and felt in some long-distance lifetime. He closes his eyes. He feels safe, held between the two of them, and that, too, is unknowable and unknown, unfamiliar, frightening in that he’s never known safety for as far as he can remember, that every tiny scrap and glimpse of it he’s had was ripped away. He’s afraid of such safety, for it doesn’t feel different enough from the feeling of constant danger to soothe his fear of such an unfamiliar thing. 

“Hey, now, hey-now,” Bert half chants, his voice so soft, thumbing away a stray tear as Thomas presses his trembling lips together. “What tears are these, then?”

“What happened?” Thomas asks, his voice shaking. “What happened, after-” 

_ After I died _ , he does not say, but Alain sighs as if he had. 

“We continued on,” he says gently. “For I lived on, our ka-tet and Lavinia all lived on together, the five of us-” 

Thomas almost bursts into tears of relief at that, and tears of horrified sadness as well, for that does not leave any room for Claire, oh no, it does not. Thomas is overwhelmed with the urge to find her and hold her, to apologize for not doing it well enough to save her, to promise better next time.

“Hush now, hush,” Alain murmurs, giving his hands a squeeze, warm-soft-golden tingling all up through Thomas’s skin and the bones of his hand. “My sister is alright, she is here, Tommy, you will see her in the dinner-hall tonight, and tomorrow, and every day after. And you know I could never keep a secret from her, and she knows what happened, and she’s just very happy that we’re all safe now, and she loves you, of course. Alright?”

“Mm,” Thomas cannot fully agree or speak, though he feels Cuthbert’s lovely hands at his brow, smoothing it back, combing through his hair.

“I think you ought to know, old boy, we found the place,” Cuthbert says softly, lovely moonlight Bertie. “The place you dream of, the meeting of the land and the sea, the place where you built us such lovely homes. Alas! Ours was never so fine as the ones you made, for we never quite got the trick of tile, you know, but- but we did find it, Thomas, we found the place where you built homes for us, and built homes there, too, and lived there for quite a long time, as long as we could get away with.”

Thomas exhales slowly. He can almost see it- the play of light through the water as a warm wave rolls over his head, the unending twinkle of starlight over a flat nighttime ocean, the fierce golden mess as the sunset hits an endless expanse of brilliant sea, the soft golden corona as the sunset hits his Jamie’s hair, its light softening the lines of age. Ah, he  _ wants  _ it, he wants it more than he’s ever allowed himself to want anything, and Cuthbert chuckles a little, and Alain raises one of his hands to his lips, pressing a small kiss against his forefinger.

“We’ll take you there, Tommy,” Alain promises softly. “For we know the way, now.”

“I should like that very much,” Thomas murmurs. “To see such skies, to see such a sea as this, to be in that place.” 

“Of course,” Bert says gravely, adding, “for we shan’t try to build any such houses without you again, no. Why, we never had so much as a wash-basin indoors, you know, we had to use an outdoor privy- a hole in the ground, if you can but credit it!- and wash our hands in a bucket, and as for bathing, why, you simply do not  _ wish  _ to know!”

“Can see how as that’d be difficult for you,” Thomas says, his mouth and tongue and indeed all of him feeling very heavy and sleepy now. He pulls a hand free from Alain’s grip, rubbing at his face a bit, and wonders how it is that he might waste more than an hour trying and failing to be sleepy before his friends got in, and yet as soon as they come and want to talk to him he starts to slip under. It doesn’t seem very fair, no, but when has anything ever been?

“You’re tired,” Alain says softly. 

“Aye, that I am,” Thomas agrees, and he means to say more, he does, only it seems he finally finds some sleep there in the space between what he says and what he’d like to say.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

It is some weeks- ah, it may be a little more, for Thomas gets very wandersome and forgetful, and forgets that he is annoyed with Roland, which puts all thoughts of Roland's  silliness and his worries for the future, for their future, aside- before he thinks to ask Jamie to please come meet him. He is nervous- not because of what he will say, though he thinks he remembers a Time, other Times, when he was afraid that he couldn’t tell Jamie his feelings, his thoughts, that Jamie would give him a single flash of horror or disgust or baldfaced fear before shutting him out completely and for the rest of their short lives. He is nervous because he wants, and wanting things makes him nervous, and even though he has grown more used to having what he wants in this When, he still waits for the shadow of all the blood and sadness to rear up again and take. 

Thomas is prepared, though. He has a safe and comfortable room of his own, instead of borrowing space from Cuthbert and Jamie, and it is a comforting clutter of interesting things and drawings and great big maps his Granddad gave him and soft, comforting little poppets and things his Uncle Tibby made him. His bed is firm and padded well, the pillow specially sewn- another gift from Uncle Tibby- to cradle his silly neck and stop it from hurting when he wakes. It is a space that is his, a space that was given to him by his family instead of carved out by himself, and Thomas loves it so, loves the old stains from color-mixing experiments and the faint scorches from his play with Siobhan and all the gathered bricabrac from his childhood here, surrounded by his ka-tet, kept safe and loved by a family he can’t say he’s ever dreamed of having or knowing, before. 

The blanket on his bed is new- Uncle Toby brought it back to him from a trader, he claims, and it is the exact right color of soft afternoon light shining through leaves onto cool, flat stones, and it is soft and smooth and cool to lay on, and pleasantly heavy and thick and comforting to lay under. Thomas is still running his hands appreciatively over it when Jamie comes in- he hears Jamie shut the door and latch it, for Jamie never does like the idea of someone coming in upon him unannounced, but he can’t tear his eyes away from the cloth, or stop himself from cooing slightly at the feel of it under his palms.

“Feel,” he says finally, and Jamie comes close and does as Thomas does, spreading his hands out over the blanket, one small and perfect and brown, one small and perfect and red. 

“Nice,” Jamie comments mildly; he is amused, and glad to be alone with Thomas, aye. Thomas is glad to be alone with him, too, but he knows that’s not what he asked Jamie to come here for. 

“I want to-” Thomas sighs, shyly reaching for Jamie’s hand, and Jamie reaches out, takes his. “I want to tell you something.”

“Alright, Tommy?” Jamie asks- a touch of concern, now, too, for Jamie is ever so good and lovely, for Jamie loves him, aye. 

“I love you,” Thomas says, and when he looks up Jamie’s mouth is quirked into a smile.

“I know,” he says, head tilting prettily to one side. “Love you, my Tommy.”

“No, I mean to say, I  _ love  _ you,” Thomas explains, and Jamie’s smile widens. 

“I know that, Tommy. Knew this already, see,” he adds, softly teasing, and Thomas takes both Jamie’s hands in his. 

“I want,” he says, very small but very clear, “for you to know. I don’t even know that love is the right way of saying it, for any one  _ person  _ might be loved and love, and you’re- Jamie, you’re-” Thomas licks his lower lip, casting his eyes down. “The sea, Jamie. The bright and clear pretty sea, the deep and powerful and magic sea, the sea that gives and gives, the sea that swallows unlucky ships and foolish cities, Jay. Such that I want to leap in, all at once, all a suddenness and quickness, and such that I want to walk, aye, slow and sweet and knowing. To be near you, Jamie, to be with you, is to sink into the sea, warm currents and cool currents and soft light and rising darkness.” 

He glances up, meets Jamie’s eyes. “I know not what I  _ could  _ even give, to such a gloriousness, no. But I want you to have it, Jamie. You have it already. I only-”

“ _ Tommy _ ,” Jamie says, a small and faintly breathless laugh leaving him, and it is not a surprise at all when he kisses Thomas on the mouth. Jamie pulls back, smiling, tears faintly glimmering in his eyes. “Early, Tommy.”

“Early?” Thomas asks, a little dazed, and Jamie thumbs at his jaw, at his mouth.

“A month earlier,” he says. Thomas doesn’t understand, and Jamie, seeing this, gently taps his lip. “Last time. You didn’t say. Until next month. Thought I was going to have to wait four whole weeks for this.”

Thomas giggles, and Jamie does as well, for they both think of a marked calendar,  _ Tommy And Jamie Kiss _ , and the image passes between their shared _khef_ as easily as their breath. Thomas runs his hands over Jamie’s hair, his shoulders, before taking up his hands again, and they sit quietly, foreheads pressed together. 

“What would you like, Jamie?” Thomas asks softly, and Jamie makes a small noise, pulling his hands free to press at Thomas’s chest. Thomas instinctively leans back, and Jamie frowns, grasping at his shoulders, pulling him closer and holding him in place. 

“ _ You _ ,” Jamie says, and he surely can’t see Thomas’s puzzled expression, for they’re too close for Jamie’s eyes to pick it out, but he must know, all the same, his right hand moving to Thomas’s face. “I want. You. With me. Alive.”

Thomas winces, his hand covering Jamie’s. He remembers very clearly, everything that happened up to a certain point, the last time around- and after that point, everything is vague, murky, for he hadn’t committed everything to the stringwork of ka after that, no. He remembers that he hadn’t known what to do, and that he’d had a very bad idea, and that no one could have stopped him without Alain to feel the sudden shape of his mind, with Jamie too busy to notice his Tommy’d gone a-wandering. 

“You didn’t say goodbye,” Jamie says quietly, barely able to be heard at all, and Thomas breathes slowly out. “I wanted you to stay. And you didn’t.” 

Thomas turns a little, pressing a kiss into Jamie’s palm, Jamie’s wrist. Jamie doesn’t like talking about last time. Jamie doesn’t like remembering, and Thomas feels sorry for making him remember it. 

“Cry pardon, Jamie,” Thomas murmurs, and Jamie huffs at him.

“Don’t do such, Tommy. Just  _ stay _ ,” he says, tugging a little on a lock of Thomas’s long hair with his free hand. 

“Ah, don’t,” Thomas sighs, and puts his face into Jamie’s narrow shoulder. “Aye, the sea wants me to stay, who am I but a silly daft Tommy, and who am I to say nay? I’ll stay, then.”

“Yes,” Jamie says sternly, but the effect is lessened somewhat, for they both start to giggling again- Thomas because he’s imagined a contrite Old Man Tommy being scolded by the living waters at some fantastic beach, Jamie because he’s relieved, and glad, and safe. It is easy to kiss again, with the familiar ease of all the times they’ve kissed before in that distant life, with the fumbling giddiness of how new it is to do this for the first and now second time. 

It is nice- it is very nice- but Thomas pulls back a little, one last thing on his tongue, and it is a struggle to remember just what it’s meant to be. Jamie waits patiently, open love on his face, in his eyes, in the gentleness of his hands. 

“What do we do,” he asks softly, “when this all goes down the same broken and unhappy road, Jay?”

“If,” Jamie says decisively, putting his head on Thomas’s chest, listening- as he does often, as he likes to do when the opportunity arises- to Thomas’s heartbeat. After a moment or two, Jamie adds, “if it does, then. Fuck it.”

“Pardon _ me _ ,” Thomas wheezes, and Jamie huffs a laugh.

“If it happens, after all we’ve tried.  _ Then fuck it _ . We’ll go to the beach. We’ll build our house. Eat those stupid Shrimps.” 

Thomas tries not to laugh, which would dislodge Jamie, as he asks, “And- and what about everyone else? Our ka-mates, aye, our dinh, our mothers and families, what about them?” 

Jamie tilts his face up, grinning faintly. “They can come too. Their own house, though. Ours  _ private _ .”

It sounds like a fine idea. Thomas likes it very much. A little of his anxiety steps away- not gone, probably never fully gone- but it leaves him alone long enough to continue enjoying being fifteen and hearty and close to the one he loves most of all. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Roland tells him formally, the night before, and again, the morning of. Thomas wants to come, wants to support him, and he loves him very much, aye, despite his unhappiness-

-ah, but he can’t. There will be so much blood to come; Thomas can’t bear the sight of any more just yet. He doesn’t stay too far away, though- and when he approaches the testing-grounds, Jamie is waiting for him outside, leaning against the entrance, looking thoughtful. 

“Is it- started yet, or-” Thomas asks, for it strikes him dreadfully that he is early, that Jamie will ask him to come in and sit beside him and watch, and he can’t say no to Jamie, for all that he finds he  _ can  _ say no to his dinh.

“Over already,” Jamie tells him, and Thomas blinks, for he does not remember it being quite so short a test as this. And Roland steps out, flanked on both sides by Alain and Cuthbert, and his arms are empty, hanging over the apprentice guns at his hips.

“Why! Roland, where is David?” Thomas asks, horrified- he wouldn’t leave poor old David in the field, would he? 

“Thank you for your congratulations, Tommy,” Roland says drily- then, seeing Thomas is in quite a mood, he raises both hands. His face and arms are bruised and bleeding. “Do not point at me in so accusing a manner, Thomas. David is not there.”

“But where,” Thomas presses, ready to leap out of his own skin, and Alain puts a comforting hand on his elbow, and it’s Cuthbert who answers. 

“David is probably nesting in the nearest tree, Tommy. Roland set the old bird loose, and while Cort was watching the skies for him, Roland dove for his knees. I’m not entirely sure if Cort ever had any children, but I’ll wager after a hit like that he never will.” Bert, Thomas knows, bears no love at all for the man, but Bert also knows that Thomas has been fretting over Cort’s fate as well, and he gives Thomas a pat. “You missed a very boring trial, compared to last time.”

Thomas turns his bewildered gaze back to Roland, hands on his face for a moment before he can speak. “You- but- you didn’t?” 

He’s not entirely sure what it is he’s asking, himself, but Roland holds his arms open, and Thomas throws himself into them, picking Roland up and giving him a twirl- a short one, for it will not do to throw out his back or dislocate his shoulder. Roland buries his face in Thomas’s neck, squeezing him tight. 

“I didn’t,” he says softly, then, gently patting Thomas’s back, “for someone told me once that if I couldn’t do it without using him so, that I shouldn’t do it. And that David is ten years old, besides, and has twenty more left in him.”

“Say true, say very true indeed, there’s no reason for this to be the last day of his life yet, then,” Thomas agrees wetly, leaning back to cup Roland’s dear, lovely face, beaming at him. “You might be a wise and just man yet, lovey.”

“Oh, don’t lie to the man, now, Tommy,” Cuthbert says, grinning at them. Thomas puts himself uneasily down onto one knee, taking Roland’s hand.

“Cry your pardon, gunslinger, for I oughtn’t have booted you,” he says, and Roland cracks a rare smile, and it is beautiful, aye. 

“You have it, Tommy. Rise up in love now, for I have no interest in explaining to your mother or your mother’s kin why you knelt so long you popped a kneecap out of true,” he says, helping Thomas up. “And also do not throw any more boots at me, Thomas, that hurt.”

“I promise not to throw any more boots at you, unless I forget,” Thomas agrees, clasping Roland’s hand. “So- where are you off to now, then? For it’s too early  _ not  _ to go and eat dinner, no, you ought to be famished.”

“I am going,” Roland says, very dignified, “to take a private dinner with my mother, and see if I can’t lure my father out of hiding to come join us. And if he doesn’t, well, it will be a nice dinner, then.”

Thomas snorts, and then Roland pats his shoulder. “And I shall probably go spend the night with Alain and Cuthbert at the Allgoods’ home- if, perhaps, you and Jamie would like to join us?”

Thomas thinks about it, before glancing over at Jamie. Jamie gives him a small smile and a shrug. He would very much like to go spend the night with his friends, and visit sweet old Catgirl, but he would also like to spend this night with his family while he can, _because_ he can.  


“I will decide this after Jamie and I eat, for we have planned already to eat with our families,” he says. “And then, after-”

Roland nods, bouncing on his heels. In his mind he is already headed east, already casting his eyes on Mejis and the Clean Sea and the lovely girl he meets and will meet again. It’s lovely, aye, and for once- at last- Thomas feels very sure that this is all right, that this is all Rose, that everything is going so, so well.

Thomas ambles over to Jamie, linking their fingers together. Jamie smiles up at him- a small, private smile, the tumbling of pale tiny shells in the surf. 

“Alright, Tommy?” he asks, and Thomas grins.

“Yes, love. Let’s go home, then."

 


	6. Chapter 6

**REQUIEM**

 

He knows, in a vague sort of way, that there was something he was doing, that he meant to do. Had he meant to gather? Oh, no, he thinks he had not intended to do any such thing, for he walks with two canes now, and cannot carry a basket easily. He would have asked one of the youngsters to come with him, and laughed at their jokes, and shared some of the old stories that he likes to tell them as they helped him gather.

 Thomas wrinkles his brow a little. He opens his hands a few times, slowing his steps but not stopping, for it occurs to him very sudden and gentle that he is not, indeed, walking with two canes, or even one. He is upright and unassisted, and the familiar pain from hips to toes is faded, fading, gone, and the familiar pain from his neck and spine is gone, and the familiar pain from his shoulders to his fingertips gone, too. He spreads his hands out, admiring the scarred and calloused palms, admiring the worn and tattooed knuckles.

 “Marvelous,” Thomas decides, and is pleased to hear that the old, painful rattle in his chest has gone, too. It is a good day for a walk through such a forest as this, he thinks. And it is such a lovely forest, is it not? The trees are ancient and good, the air is cool, and there is a sweet taste to the air itself, too, the taste of cleanness and pine as it meets the salt of the sea, and there is a distant singing wind, carrying the scent of faint and far-off roses. Thomas breaks out into a sunny grin. “Simply marvelous.”

 He runs his open hands down his chest. There are old scars aplenty, and when he looks he can see his many, many tattoos, though curiously enough he does not spy his shirt. Had he forgotten to wear it, today? He might have, he might have, for he is an old and silly Tommy, and forgets many things, and if none of the youngsters caught him leaving the house half-dressed, why, he might have done anything.

 And it appears he has. Thomas has a stronger idea now that he did, indeed, mean to finish a painting- oh, such a lovely large painting, for he went somewhere lovely with his (??sketchbook??) sheaf of papers and his pencils, and has drawn up many studies and sketches for a great big one, aye, as tall as Thomas is and twice that length from side to side, and he has _so_ many ideas for another painting after that, even though he’s quite positive he’ll run out of room again.

 “I shouldn’t like to leave anything unfinished,” he tells the forest, but ah, there’s no helping it, for he is here now, not in his (??studio??) room at home, and he seems to have left behind everything he likes to use for drawing and for painting. Thomas does slow to a stop, then, placing his hand on a warm, living tree. He remembers that he meant to paint a great huge painting, aye, he remembers that he meant to paint their family, their ka-tet, the loves of his life, and their children, and it seems very certain now that he cannot do this, not anymore.

 Ah, but that’s the way of it, isn’t it? And there are paintings, besides, of all of them individually, and if there are no paintings of them as a group, why, there are fottergraphs aplenty, for young Jake has- has-

 Thomas licks his lips. “A Pole-aroid. ‘Tisn’t fottergraphs, either, that’s not right, it’s phot-oh-graphs. Aye. A delightsome thing, it is, and useful.”

 It comforts him a little to remember, to know. Thomas smiles a little, looking around, and finally looks at his feet, and sees that he’s been following a path. Not just any path, either, but the Path of the Beam, aye, _that_ familiar old thing.

 “I thought I’d been quite done with you,” he says to it, and it is a Path, and says nothing. Thomas shrugs, and continues to follow it. He feels good- better than he can remember ever feeling, in this poorly-stitched body- and can see himself walking all day, perhaps. He supposes he will feel like stopping when there is a Clearing. There is always a Clearing, eventually.

 He does not ache, though he does tire. It is long enough for him to be deeply glad of it when he finally does see the trees thin out before him, and then he jogs a little, for there is someone waiting for him in the bright and gentle sunlight there.

 Jamie turns to him and smiles, their secret smile, the light turning his hair into a golden, cloudlike corona just a shade or two lighter than his skin. There is darker silver there, now, and Thomas remembers and likes it very much, remembers that Jamie likes the thick streaks of silver-white in Thomas’s long braid, remembers that they are old, now, remembers that they have had _ever_ so much time together, but now… now….

 “Made me wait,” Jamie says gently, and Thomas gathers him up in his arms, delighting in the feel of him, the weight of him, the soft smell of his hair and the press of his arms ‘round his waist.

 “Didn’t mean to,” Thomas tells him, kissing his forehead, kissing his mouth, kissing the palm of his hand, every finger, the center of the lovely red mark on the back of it, his wrist, his shoulder, the hinge of his jaw, his mouth again. Jamie huffs a small laugh, gently stroking the hair out of Thomas’s face.

 “My Tommy,” he says softly, and Thomas grins, for ever it has been so, for he has belonged to Jamie for as long as he has been alive and aware, which is _such_ a long time now. Jamie cradles his face in his hands, and they are small and perfect and warm, holding him in place, keeping him safe. “Love you, my Tommy.”

 “I love you, my Jamie,” he says, burying his face in Jamie’s shoulder. Aye, he does, with everything he has and is and ever was. “Is- is it time, you think… perhaps just a small rest?”

 “Oh, yes,” Jamie promises, and that is very good, indeed.


End file.
